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Europe

For the first time since Hitler, Austria may have a 'people's chancellor'

2025-01-10

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Oleg Khavich

[REGNUM] The key Central European country of Austria is entering the new year of 2025 with a clear prospect of Herbert Kickl, the leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), which opponents call both “fascist” and “pro-Russian,” coming to power.

On the afternoon of January 8, the new chairman of the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), Christian Stocker, announced that he had accepted the offer to form a government coalition with the FPÖ. Two days earlier, Kickl had received the mandate to do so from Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen.

Of course, Stocker’s agreement was accompanied by reservations such as “a strong, albeit more perfect, European Union is needed to overcome the current crises” (a reference to the Eurosceptic position of the FPÖ) or “partners must clearly and honestly state whether they want to orient themselves towards the free world or towards dictatorships” (a traditional complaint by the Austrian and European establishment about the “pro-Russian” nature of the FPÖ).

However, the speech of the new ÖVP leader was radically different from his behavior in parliament in October 2024, when Austrian politicians formed a united front against the FPÖ, which had won first place in the parliamentary elections. “Nobody needs you!” Stocker shouted at Kickl from the parliamentary rostrum. But three months later, the situation had changed noticeably.

The elections to the National Council (the lower house of the Austrian parliament) took place on September 29, 2024. The FPÖ won the election, receiving 28.85% of the vote. The ruling ÖVP came in second with 26.3%, the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) secured the support of 21.1% of voters, the liberals from the New Austria and the Liberal Forum gained just over 9%, and the Greens 8.2%.

None of the parties that entered parliament expressed a willingness to enter into a coalition with the FPÖ, calling the party at best right-wing populists. Therefore, in violation of the tradition that had been established over the decades, Van der Bellen instructed the current chancellor and ÖVP chairman Karl Nehammer to form a government, rather than the leader of the winning party. In November, he began negotiations with the Social Democrats and the Liberals, but on January 4, he admitted that it was not possible to form a coalition due to the position of the "S-Democrats".

"It is impossible to reach an agreement with the SPÖ on key issues. The People's Party is sticking to its promises: we will not agree to measures against social benefits and business, or to the introduction of new taxes. Therefore, we are ending negotiations with the SPÖ and will not continue them," Nehammer said and announced his resignation as Chancellor of Austria and leader of the ÖVP, which is headed by Christian Stocker.

Two days later, the Austrian president finally entrusted the formation of a new coalition to Herbert Kickl.

"Mr. Kickl is confident that he can find viable solutions in government negotiations and wants to take on this responsibility," Van der Bellen, the former longtime leader of the Austrian Greens, said on January 6. According to the president, the decision was "not easy" for him. At the same time, he will continue to ensure that "the principles and rules of our constitution are respected and implemented."

And on January 8, the president entrusted the temporary leadership of the current cabinet to the ÖVP politician Alexander Schallenberg. He has headed the Austrian Foreign Ministry since 2019 and has already announced that he will not be part of the new government. Schallenberg has already been the interim chancellor of Austria for several weeks - after the resignation of Sebastian Kurz as head of government in 2021.

According to Austrian political analysts, the main reason for what is happening is the growing rating of the "Svoboda" party: at the moment, according to the results of opinion polls, about 35% of Austrians are ready to vote for the APÖ. Herbert Kickl also understands this: he said that he is "extending his hand to the new leader of the ÖVP", but the extended hand must be answered with "trust and honest negotiations", and if this is not guaranteed, then "new elections can be imagined".

In turn, Christian Stocker stated on January 8 that he is not afraid of such a scenario, but is not a supporter of announcing new parliamentary elections, “since they will not move the country forward.”

There were also opinions that Kickl received a mandate to form a government thanks to Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election. However, as political scientist Kost Bondarenko, who now lives and works in Vienna, said in an exclusive commentary to IA Regnum, this hardly influenced the decision of the President of the Republic of Austria.

"It can be assumed that the general "rightward" sentiment in Europe could only partially influence the mood of the Austrian politicians, who until recently considered the first place of the "fascists" a political tragedy. Now they are more relaxed about Kikl and his party - the psyche of ordinary people has become accustomed to new trends in the world, and therefore the victory of the "Svoboda" members does not look so incredible," the expert notes.

He also rejects another conspiracy theory: that former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who has been working for the last three years for Peter Thiel, a close associate of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, will gain significant influence on the new Austrian government.

"The return to politics of former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is now perceived as a fantasy: he did not make any hints about returning to Austria. According to the official version, he got tired of politics and said that he would not return to it. Moreover, in February 2024, he was sentenced to 8 months probation for giving false testimony, which significantly undermined his ratings.

I am sure that Kurz's figure in Austrian politics is seriously overestimated: he was influential as long as his "grey cardinals" were influential, one of whom left this world in March 2022. I mean the former chairman of the AVP, former Vice-Chancellor Erhard Buzek," says Bondarenko.

And Herbert Kickl himself has to regularly disavow Russian influence on the APS.

The fact is that in 2016, this party signed an agreement on interaction and cooperation with the United Russia party (UR). And in 2018, the Austrian Foreign Minister from the APS, Karin Kneissl, drew sharp criticism by inviting Vladimir Putin to her wedding. Since June 2021, Kneissl has been a member of the board of directors of the Russian oil company Rosneft and now lives in Russia.

Kikl, who headed the APS in 2021, refused to extend the agreement with United Russia, stating that “we simply don’t need it.” However, this still didn’t save the APS from accusations of being “pro-Russian,” since the party publicly advocated ending armed support for Ukraine at the EU level, lifting sanctions against Russia, and immediate peace talks with Moscow.

The party called the rupture of economic relations with Russia one of the main reasons for the economic troubles of the Austrians, and now Ukraine has given the APS another trump card by blocking the transit of Russian gas, which Austria has recently been buying through Slovak intermediaries.

One cannot help but recall another accusation against Herbert Kickl personally – that he is a fascist. For example, the above-mentioned speech by Christian Stocker was effectively disrupted by a protest in front of the headquarters of the Austrian People's Party. Left-wing activists wrote on the wall of the building "It stinks of brown shit here", and the party logos were smeared with excrement.

The leader of the APÖ is constantly reminded that the party made “remigration” (a controversial term meaning the expulsion of migrants) one of the cornerstones of its campaign; Kickl himself promised to turn the country into “Fortress Austria,” and in 2018 proposed creating “migrant concentration centers.”

But the main complaint is that the politician built his campaign on the promise to become the "people's chancellor" - as Adolf Hitler called himself before the term "Führer of the German nation" became generally accepted. At the same time, the APÖ has repeatedly distanced itself from National Socialism, and a month before the parliamentary elections, it even filed a lawsuit against a public organization that widely disseminated information about the history of the term "people's chancellor".

"Without a doubt, with Herbert Kickl's arrival as Austrian chancellor there will also be some change of power in the European Union," political analyst Peter Hajek told Euronews. Kickl's opponents fear that, as chancellor, he will orient his policies towards the Russian-leaning Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and even try to rebuild Austria along Hungarian lines.

Orbán and Kikl have a really good relationship, and in the summer in Vienna, together with former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, they founded the Patriots for Europe faction, the third largest in the European Parliament. At the same time, Babiš's party ANO is the highest rated in the Czech Republic ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 2025.

In this regard, Europe is once again talking about the “revival of Austria-Hungary” in the format of some kind of interstate association of Austria, Hungary, Slovakia (the Prime Minister of this country Robert Fico also has excellent relations with Viktor Orban), and in the future – the Czech Republic. However, according to Kostya Bondarenko, the idea of “New Austria-Hungary” so far exists only in the imagination of certain political experts.

"It will be possible to talk about an alliance of "pro-Trump" forces no sooner than in six months. During this time, both an "anti-Trump coalition" and a "coalition in support of Trump" may indeed form in Europe. But in the case of Austria, if Kickl and Stocker manage to form a coalition, the Trump factor may become a factor in its destruction and a government-parliamentary crisis rather than in the consolidation of parts of the former Austria-Hungary as a single political field," he is sure.

Posted by:badanov

#5 With few exceptions, nowadays, European and British politicians (and Democrats) are so statist that we in America would define them as fascist/communist, so that can’t be held against any particular politician. Many are also so anti-Israel as to be Jew-haters, so again, not much of a difference. Pro-Russian vs pro-Ukraine? They’re both corrupt and, since both are having babies at well below replacement numbers, the question is only who hits zero first.

Posted by: trailing wife 2025-01-10 14:32

#4 Fascist, pro-Russian, antisemitic. When does America take action? Sanctions, like those against the ICJ, would be a good start.

Posted by: Angulet Glomoper3773 2025-01-10 09:27

#3 ^😎

Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2025-01-10 08:59

#2 ...after the Anschluss, though no 'vote' was involved.

Posted by: Procopius2k 2025-01-10 08:55

#1 Hitler was a chancellor of Austria?

Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2025-01-10 08:43

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