Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen entrusted the chairman of the Free Party of Austria (FPÖ) Herbert Kickl with forming a new government. TASR informs about it according to the AFP agency.
The president told reporters that calling the FPÖ leader was “not an easy decision”. It will be the first time that negotiations on the formation of a government in Austria will be led by a far-right party. After about an hour’s meeting, President Alexander Van der Bellen said that he had entrusted Kickl with forming the government. “Mr. Kickl believes he can find viable solutions and wants that responsibility,” he said Van der Bellen.
“That’s why I tasked him to enter into talks with the (conservative) ÖVP in order to form a federal government,” he said. The FPÖ has been part of the Austrian government several times since 2000, but it will lead the coalition negotiations for the first time. In the past, the president has repeatedly expressed reservations about Kickl, who called Van der Bellen a “senile mummy”.
He also frequently used terms reminiscent of the party’s troubled past, including calling himself the future “Volkskanzler”, as Adolf Hitler was referred to. Hundreds of people protested against the extreme right in front of the Hofburg presidential palace in Vienna. They shouted “Nazis out” and held banners saying “We don’t want an Austria ruled by right-wing extremists”.
The FPÖ won the parliamentary elections at the end of September with 29.2 percent of the vote, but the other parties refused to form a coalition with it. It was attempted by the still-ruling People’s Party (ÖVP) (26.5 percent) with the social democratic SPÖ (21.1 percent) and the liberal NEOS party (9 percent). The goal was to keep right-wing populists out of power. The Greens are still in parliament with eight percent.
Coalition negotiations failed over the weekend. First NEOS left, on Saturday ÖVP and SPÖ could not agree on the topic of reducing the budget deficit.
Ľudovec Nehammer maintained his position that he does not want to govern with the FPÖ under the leadership of its leader Kickl. He therefore resigned from the position of chancellor and chairman of the People’s Committee. The interim head of the party, Christian Stocker, has in turn declared that the party will enter into coalition talks with the far right if they are invited to do so. This coalition is mainly preferred by the economic wing of the party.
The Ľudovci already ruled jointly with the free people between 2017 and 2019 under the leadership of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. After the FPÖ Ibizagate corruption scandal, the coalition collapsed prematurely.
