For the first time since World War II, a party dedicated to the extreme right will come to power in Austria: FPÖ, Freedom Party, Ultra-nationalist Party. On Monday, the President of Austria proposed to the leader of the FPÖ, the far-right right-wing Herbert Kickl, who will form a government in Austria.

The FPÖ took advantage of the reversal of the conservative Christian Democrats in last September’s elections: Democristiano ÖVP fell from 37% of the votes in 2019 to 26%, while the extreme right increased from 16% to 29%. This was expected to happen in some way, as national surveys have for almost two years laid the scene for the rise of the FPÖ and, as in a significant part of Europe, also in Austria the extreme right won the European Parliament elections in June last year. In Austria, this happened for the first time since the signing of democracy.

They could put a fence on him.

And the other parties said they were going to put it, but they haven't rounded up the game. They have not been able to reach an agreement and form a large coalition.

There was a real option, with two extremes: on the one hand, the conservative Christian Democratic Party ÖVP, until now in power, second in elections; and on the other hand, the Social Democrat SPÖ. If they joined, they could hardly constitute a parliamentary majority and form a government.

According to the news agencies and picked up the newspaper El País, these two parties have been in the negotiations since November, but from the very beginning they have shown very different positions. So they knocked at the door of the fourth liberal party, Neos, with the goal of getting to the center. More weeks of conversation went by, but it was the Liberals' top list who first publicly gave up. "Neither the Christian Democrats nor the Social Democrats are thinking about how to get Austria out of the economic recession; if the agreement is based on preventing the extreme right from coming to power, it is a very humble basis for governing a country."

Without the Liberal Party, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats have been negotiating until 4 January, at the request of the President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen. But it has not borne fruit and both parties have accused each other. Finally, Van der Bellen has called his office to Kickl, a spokesman for the far right, and has asked him to form government.

In the meantime, the current Chancellor, the Christian-Democrat Karl Nehammer, who would remain Chancellor in the event of an agreement with the Social Democrats, has resigned. In any case, the party of the conservative Christian Democrats is not so far from the far-right. Nehammer did not rule out that the FPÖ could be protected from outside; without a closed agreement, but he said that within the FPÖ there are "sensible people", and that the possibility of supporting a hypothetical government was on the table.

Austria's President, Alexander Van der Bellen, came to power eight years ago. If Kickl now becomes Chancellor, he will be eighth in office since Van der Bellen is president of the country. Van der Bellen is a member of the Green Party, which is in serious decline. It achieved only 8% support in the last elections, six points less than in the previous ones.

Herbert Kickl: Denialist and Racist

Kickl has blown up ideas against immigration and the right to asylum, and has included in his list a number of people who have been fined for xenophobic and anti-Semitic messages, as well as for the uprising of Nazism. Shortly after winning the elections, the Israeli press described Kickl as a neo-Nazi, dominating this type of message and alerting him of the danger of winning the elections.

Kickl, however, has downplayed all kinds of acts like punishment, because it does "defend freedom", because it is the Freedom Party, which is the meaning of the acronym FPÖ. In the war against Russia, Ukraine is in favour of withdrawing its support for Ukraine and is against all measures taken to combat the climate emergency, claiming that they are made "at the expense of the local economy".

He said he wants to be Volkskanzler, the "people's Chancellor", before Hitler turned Führer into the same term he used. He has received criticism of the terminology and answered: "That is not to be the extreme right, that is normal; I am a citizen and I am in favour of the people," he added. Here are some of the slogans that have been used for the campaign: "You are the masters and I your instrument," or, to give a biblical tone, "that your will become a reality."

Austria is experiencing a strong economic recession in the last two years, with an increase in unemployment and a deficit of 3.7% of GDP, above what the European Union sets. By order of the European Commission (EC), the total savings should be between EUR 18 000 million and EUR 24 000 million.

FPÖ Reactivation

Herbert Kickl came to the front of the game after the Ibiza case was known.

The scandal occurred in May 2019, in the town of Ibiza. The then government members and the leader of the FPÖ – Heinz-Christian Strache –, the Christian Democrat of the ÖVP and the Austrian Chancellor – Sebastian Kurz – appeared in a covert video, offering contracts to the niece of a Russian oligarchs in exchange for money for the election campaign.