Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen announced on Sunday that he would meet with far-right politician Herbert Kickl, as speculation grows that he will ask the Freedom Party leader to form a government.
Van der Bellen made the announcement after meeting with Chancellor Karl Nehammer and others at his presidential palace. Nehammer has announced his intention to resign after coalition talks between his conservative Austrian People’s Party and the center-left Social Democrats collapsed. the budget.
Nehammer has ruled out cooperation with Kickl, but others within his party are less adamant. Earlier Sunday, the People’s Party nominated its secretary general, Christian Stocker, as interim leader, but the president said Nehammer would remain chancellor for the time being.
Van der Bellen said he had spoken with key officials for several hours, after which he got the impression that “the voices within the People’s Party that rule out cooperation with the Freedom Party led by leader Herbert Kickl have become quieter.”
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The president said this development “may have opened a new path,” prompting him to invite Kickl to a meeting on Monday morning.
Kickl’s Freedom Party topped the polls in this fall’s national elections with 29.2% of the vote, but Van der Bellen tasked Nehammer with putting together a new government because no other party was willing to work with Kickl.
That decision came under heavy criticism from the Freedom Party and its supporters, with Kickl saying in October that it was “not right and not logical” that he was not given a mandate to form a government.
“We are not responsible for the waste of time, the chaotic situation and the enormous breach of trust that has occurred,” Kickl said on social media on Sunday afternoon. “On the contrary: it is clear that the Freedom Party is and remains the only stable factor in Austrian politics.”
Exterior view of the headquarters of the Austrian People’s Party in Vienna, Austria, Sunday, January 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader)
Addressing reporters on Sunday afternoon, Stocker confirmed he had been “unanimously” appointed by his party to serve as interim leader. “I am very honored and happy,” he said.
He also welcomed the president’s decision to meet Kickl and said he now expects the leader of the party that emerged as the clear winner in the last elections to be tasked with forming a government.
“If we are invited to negotiations to form a government, we will accept this invitation,” Stocker added.
In the past, Stocker has criticized Kickl, calling him a “security risk” to the country.
In its election manifesto entitled ‘Fortress Austria’, the Freedom Party calls for ‘remigration of uninvited foreigners’, to achieve a more ‘homogeneous’ nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum through an emergency law.
The PVV also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to withdraw from the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. The Freedom Party also signed a friendship agreement with Putin’s United Russia Party in 2016, which it now claims has expired.
Kickl has criticized the ‘elites’ in Brussels and called for the recovery of certain powers European Union to Austria.
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Austria was plunged into political turmoil on Friday after the liberal Neos party withdrew from coalition talks with the People’s Party and the Social Democrats. On Saturday, the two remaining parties, which have just a one-seat majority in parliament, made another attempt to form a government – but it also ended in failure after a few hours, with negotiators saying they could not could agree on how to remedy the situation. budget deficit.
