Political observers in Austria suspect that Kickl does not want to become chancellor at the moment. He is waiting and seeing.
FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl is ready for the national election on September 29 in Austria. According to polls, the FPÖ will become the strongest party for the first time; it is leading in all polls with 27-29 percent.
But: “As things stand, the FPÖ has absolutely no chance of forming a coalition. All other parties have ruled out working with the FPÖ. The question is whether that will still apply after the election,” says political scientist Peter Filzmaier. And indeed: Austrian politics is flexible. In terms of content, a coalition between Chancellor Nehammer’s People’s Party and the Freedom Party would be very easy.
“In so-called election aids on the Internet, where questions are asked about topics, the agreement between the FPÖ and the ÖVP is generally around 80 percent.” But there has been resentment on both sides since Kickl was dismissed as Interior Minister in 2019 at the instigation of the then ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. It was an unprecedented event for Austria.
Haider did not join the government
One solution would be for Kickl to renounce the office of head of government, like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. This has already happened in Austria: In 2000, the second-placed FPÖ entered into a coalition with the third-placed ÖVP and even gave the latter the chancellorship. The then FPÖ leader Jörg Haider did not join the government in order to make this possible in the first place.
That is not an option in 2024, says political consultant Thomas Hofer. “I think Herbert Kickl sees that as a big mistake in retrospect. He will not repeat that mistake.”
An alternative would be a three-party coalition of the ÖVP, the social democratic SPÖ and, if necessary, the liberal Neos. For the experts Hofer and Filzmaier, this is the most likely scenario and perhaps even Herbert Kickl’s calculation. “I don’t think he is necessarily aiming for the chancellorship in 2024,” suspects political consultant Thomas Hofer. “He would trust that this coalition would not last too long, perhaps one and a half or two years.”
Herbert Kickl’s hour would then come in the election after next, “and then he would be a factor that can no longer be ignored.”
The formation of a government will take time
But the results of the other parties also have an influence on the formation of the government: If the SPÖ performs very poorly, the ÖVP will have no negotiating partner because the unpopular SPÖ leader Andreas Babler would be ousted by his own people. If the ÖVP only comes in third place, a new ÖVP leadership could be lured into a government coalition by the FPÖ with many privileges.
One thing is clear: the formation of a government will drag on until Christmas or even into the new year. The state elections in Styria will take place at the end of November, and the election campaign will continue seamlessly, predicts political scientist Filzmaier. “No matter how the election turns out, no matter which government is formed afterwards, we will see many demonstrations. On the one hand against a government led by Herbert Kickl. And if he does not come into government, possibly despite coming first in the election, then the impression will increasingly be created in his appearances that he is planning to continue his election campaign, for the next five years if necessary. That includes even more loud protests on the streets.”