After ending negotiations with Social Democrats and liberals, the Conservative People’s Party indicates that it is willing to work with the far-right Freedom Party to establish a new government.
In a policy reversal following the collapse of coalition discussions with the Social Democrats and liberals, Austria’s conservatives declared they were prepared to start talks with the far-right in order to establish a new government.
Conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer ended negotiations on Saturday to create a moderate administration without the far-right, the party that received the most votes in the September national elections, plunging the Alpine EU member into political uncertainty.
In order to facilitate a “orderly transition” following the collapse, Nehammer said that he will resign as the People’s Party (OeVP)’s chancellor and party chairman in the day’s ahead. Since late 2021, he has held both positions.
OeVP Secretary General Christian Stocker was selected as the temporary party head at a conservative leadership meeting on Sunday.
Stocker claimed that his party had given him permission to negotiate a coalition with the far right if asked.
“This country needs a stable government right now, and we can’t keep losing time to election campaigns or elections that we don’t have, “Stocker stated on Sunday.
Shortly before, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen declared he will “discuss the new situation” with Herbert Kickl, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), on Monday.
Reporters were informed by Van der Bellen that “voices within the OeVP that rule out working with . . . . Kickl have become significantly quieter”.
“That means a new path may be opening up that did not previously exist”, he stated.
“We have chaos, instead of stability”
Stocker praised the president’s choice to negotiate with the far-right leader during a news conference. The leader’s party received about 29% of the vote, but it has yet to recruit allies to form a national government.
Van der Bellen’s willingness to challenge the extreme right to try to establish a government was not immediately apparent.
The conservatives were first given the responsibility of establishing a stable government that upholds the “foundations of our liberal democracy” by Van der Bellen.
He has previously expressed misgivings about Kickl, whose party now has a 35 percent polling rate.
“I wanted to be the force of the political center in order to build a bulwark against the radicals”, Nehammer stated on Saturday.
In a statement, Kickl referred to the coalition negotiations’ partners as “losers” and claimed that after three “wasted months”, “instead of stability, we have chaos”.
The center-left Social Democrats (SPOe) got 21 percent in the September election, while the conservative People’s Party finished second with 26 percent in the November election.
Since 1987, the OeVP has been a component of the government of the nine million-person Alpine nation.
Since 2000, it has governed multiple times with the FPOe as junior partners.
