-Analysis-
WARSAW — Will Herbert Kickl, leader of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), join forces with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán following his electoral victory on Sunday? That is the worst-case scenario.
Austria’s parliamentary elections were yet another European election in which the far right has triumphed this year. And one more that will most likely result in a political crisis.
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Over the summer in France, the far-right National Rally (RN) won the first round of snap parliamentary elections. Its success was incomplete, however, as the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella did not repeat those results in the second round and therefore failed to take power. Even so, the survival of the conservative government under Prime Minister Michel Barnier, appointed by President Emmanuel Macron, has been hanging on by a thread from the beginning.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) recently triumphed in three eastern German states. It won the elections in Thuringia and Saxony, and came in second in Brandenburg, losing by less than a percentage point to the winner. The result? There are no new governments in any of these states, and when governments are formed, they will be unstable.
A similar scenario is expected in Austria.
Austria: Putin’s next stronghold?
The FPÖ achieved a historic victory in Sunday’s National Council elections, winning 29% of the votes. A politician from this party will head the parliament for the first time, but will the party rule?
Already on the post-election evening, Kickl reached out to politicians of the currently ruling Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), which received 26% of the vote. If such an alliance came to fruition and the extremist Kickl became chancellor, Austria would quickly find itself on a similar path to Orban’s Hungary.
Orbán’s authoritarian state has fascinated the Austrian far right for years. FPÖ politicians would also like to put a leash on the public media, shut up civil society, take full control of the state’s resources and make billions of fortunes from it. Neutral Austria has long been a safe haven for Russians in the European Union. Under the rule of the FPÖ, it would become a Putin stronghold.
Austria-Hungary played its role in European history. But Budapest would dominate in the new alliance, where FPÖ officers would go to learn how to destroy democracy — just like Polish Law and Justice (PiS) politicians in the past. That is how a Hungary-Austria alliance would be created.
What happens next?
But this arithmetically simple yet bleak scenario does not have to come true. The Christian Democrats of the ÖVP are unlikely to agree to a government being headed by Kickl, whom Karl Nehammer, the current ÖVP chancellor, called a “threat to the state” during the election campaign.
The question is whether ruling the country alongside the far right will prove too humiliating for the ÖVP. The alternative, however, is a difficult three-member coalition (an alliance with Social Democracy, which won only 20% of the vote, would have a minimal majority) either with the Greens or the Liberals.
President Alexander Van der Bellen has absolutely nothing in common with Kickl and the FPÖ.
There has been no such solution in Austrian politics. And a crisis similar to what France is currently experiencing is likely.
It is also important to remember that the shape of Austria’s political chessboard is determined by a player who did not stand for election. The country’s president has so far entrusted the leader of the winning party with the task of forming a government out of custom and good practice. Yet according to the constitution, he can appoint anyone he wants to this position. He also has the right to refuse to swear in individual ministers.
President Alexander Van der Bellen, who is in his second term and comes from the Green Party, has absolutely nothing in common with Kickl and the FPÖ. So it is difficult to imagine that he will remain passive during the long and difficult coalition talks awaiting Austria, and that he will make life easier for the libertarians during the four years left in his term.
