Far-right FPÖ leader meets Austrian president on new government

Leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Herbert Kickl, met with the federal president to discuss the formation of a new government.

The FPÖ won nearly 29% of the votes in last week’s national election, securing the highest share but falling short of a majority.

To form a government, Kickl must now seek a coalition, but Austria’s other parties — including the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), the Green Party, and the liberal NEOS — have all ruled out joining a coalition.

The former ruling OVP, which secured 26% of the vote, said it might consider collaboration, only if Kickl is not included in the government.

The FPÖ leader has been a controversial figure known for endorsing various conspiracy theories, including advocating for the use of Ivermectin, a drug for treating parasitic worms in animals, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He has also previously called the World Health Organisation “an instrument for enforcement of power interests.”

Kickl was a longtime campaign strategist for the Freedom Party, coining catchy and provocative anti-immigration slogans.

He spent most of his political career in the background — notably as speechwriter for Jörg Haider, who led the party to success in the 1980s and 1990s — before serving as interior minister between 2017 and 2019 in a government that collapsed because of a corruption scandal surrounding the FPÖ’s then-leader.

Even Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party, which has formed two national coalition governments with the FPÖ and works with it in several regional governments, considers Kickl a “security risk”.

Nehammer says that Kickl “radicalised himself” and it is “impossible to shape a state” with him.

The largely Eurosceptic and Kremlin-friendly FPÖ, founded in 1956 by former Nazis, takes a hard-line stance on immigration, calling for the “remigration of uninvited foreigners” and seeking to reclaim powers from the EU for Austria.

It is part of a right-wing populist alliance in the European Parliament, Patriots for Europe, whose members welcomed the Austrian election results as building on gains in other countries.

The FPÖ calls for lifting sanctions against Russia and criticises Western military aid to Ukraine.

Kickl has labelled European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as a “warmonger.”