Austria's far-right Freedom Party could win a national election for the first time in Austria's vote on Sunday, raising concerns among voters over immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other concerns, following recent hard-right gains across Europe. It will be put to good use.
Herbert Kickle, a former interior minister and longtime election strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to become Austria's new chancellor. He used the term “Volkskanzler”, or People's Chancellor, that the Nazis used in the 1930s to describe Adolf Hitler. Kickl rejected the comparison.
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But to achieve that, they will need a coalition partner with a majority in the House of Commons.
Moreover, recent opinion polls predict a close race, and victory is far from certain. They put the Freedom Party at 27%, Chancellor Karl Nehammer's conservative Austrian People's Party at 25%, and the centre-left Social Democratic Party at 21%.
Austrian Prime Minister Karl Nehammer attends a press conference in Vienna in August. (AP Photo/Heinz Peter Bader)
Still, Kickle has made the best turnaround since Austria's last election in 2019. In June's European Parliament elections, the Liberal Party narrowly won the national vote for the first time, handing victories to other far-right parties in Europe.
In the 2019 election, its support rating dropped to 16.2% after its junior coalition partner collapsed in a scandal. Heinz-Christian Strache, deputy chancellor and leader of the Freedom Party at the time, resigned after a secretly recorded video appeared to show him favoring an alleged Russian investor.
The far right is capitalizing on voter discontent over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic. Also, concerns about migration have increased.
Margot Sterner, 54, said: “I don't feel safe in my country anymore, but just thinking about the safety of my people, my children, my women, I get branded as a right-winger.'' It will happen,” he said. Liberal Party campaign events this month.
In its election plan, the Liberal Party calls for a more “homogeneous” nation through “re-settlement of uninvited foreigners,” strict border control, and the suspension of asylum rights through “emergency legislation.” I'm looking for it.
Gernot Bauer, a journalist with the Austrian magazine Profile who recently co-published an investigative biography of the far-right leader, said that under Kickle's leadership he has refused to explicitly distance himself from the Freedom Party. He said the Liberal Party had moved “further to the right.” Political party of the Identity Movement, a pan-European nationalist and far-right group.
Bauer described Kickle's rhetoric as “offensive” and said some of his language was intentionally provocative.
The Liberal Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine, and wants to reject participation from the European Skyshield initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. I'm thinking.
The leader of the Social Democratic Party, which has led many Austrian governments since World War II, sees himself as the exact opposite of Kickl. Andreas Babler, the mayor of the town of Traskirchen, home to the country's largest refugee reception center, rejects far-right rule and branded Kickle a “threat to democracy”.
While the Liberal Party has rebounded, the popularity of the Nehama People's Party, which currently leads a coalition government with the environmentalist Green Party as a junior partner, has declined since 2019.
During his campaign, Nehammer described his party, which has taken a hard line on immigration in recent years, as a “strong centrist” party that would guarantee stability amid multiple crises.
But Peter Filzmeier, one of Austria's leading political scientists, believes that it is precisely these crises, from the coronavirus pandemic to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the resulting soaring energy prices, that conservatives He said he was losing support.
Under their leadership, Austria has experienced high inflation averaging 4.2% over the past 12 months, higher than the EU average.
The government also angered many Austrians by introducing Europe's first coronavirus vaccine mandate in 2022, which was scrapped months later without being implemented. Nehammer is the third person to take office since the last election, taking office in 2021 after his predecessor Sebastian Kurz, who was elected in 2019, retired from politics amid a corruption investigation.
However, recent flooding caused by Storm Boris that hit Austria and other central European countries brought environmental issues back into the election debates, and Mr Nehammer's self-styled “crisis manager” led to a difference between him and the Liberal Party. Filzmeyer said they were able to shrink the size slightly. Said.
The People's Party is the only way for the far right to come to power.
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Nehammer has repeatedly ruled out Kickl joining a government led by Kickl, saying he is a “security risk” to the country, but he has not ruled out forming a coalition with the Liberal Party. It means giving up one's government position.
Filtzmeier said it was highly unlikely that Kickl would agree to such a deal even if he won the election.
However, if the National Party finishes first, a coalition between the National Party and the Liberal Party could become a reality, Filzmeier said. The most likely alternative would be a three-way alliance between the People's Party, the Social Democratic Party and, most likely, the Liberal Neos.
