Austria’s ruling conservatives chose General Secretary Christian Stocker as Chancellor Karl Nehmer’s interim successor, Austrian media reported on Sunday, after Nehmer stepped down as his efforts to form a coalition government without the far right failed. .
There was no immediate comment from the People’s Party (OVP) and Nehmer told reporters after the party’s crisis leadership meeting on Sunday only that “important and correct decisions” had been taken.
The surprising collapse of three- and then two-party talks aimed at bringing together a centrist coalition, which would have been a bulwark against the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), after the FPÖ came in first place in the September parliamentary election. That left President Alexander Van der Bellen. With some options.
A snap election with support for the Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPÖ still on the rise or a near-face in which Van der Bellen has tasked FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl with forming a government are now the most likely options, opt or play. There is only limited scope for time.
“This is not an easy situation,” Markus Wallner, the governor of Vorarlberg, the westernmost of Austria’s nine provinces, told reporters before an ÖVP leadership meeting at the chancellor’s office on Sunday morning.
“I believe we must do everything we can now to avoid spiraling toward a national crisis.”
Wallner said he opposed snap elections because it would delay the formation of a new government by months. The OVP governors are part of the leadership.
A spokesman for Van der Bellen said he was to address the nation at 2:45 pm (1345 GMT). Nehmer first crossed the road separating their offices to report to Van der Bellen at the ÖVP leadership meeting.
Nehmer stressed during and after the election campaign that his party would not govern with Kikal because he is too much of a conspiracy theorist and poses a security threat, adding that Kikal Most of the people in the party are trustworthy.
Nehmer’s successor is likely to be more open to a coalition with the FPÖ, which is formally affiliated with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party.
Growing support for FPOs
The FPÖ won the September election with almost 29% of the vote, and opinion polls show that its support has only increased since then, bringing its lead over the ÖVP and Social Democrats to more than 10 percentage points, while their support has declined. Has gone.
The ÖVP and the FPÖ overlap on various issues, particularly taking hard stances on immigration, to the extent that the FPÖ has accused the ÖVP of stealing its ideas.
The two ruled together from late 2017 to 2019, when a video-sting scandal involving the then leader of the FPEO led to the collapse of their alliance. At the state level, they govern together in five of the nine states, including ÖVP liberal Wallner’s Vorarlberg.
The national dynamics are different now as the ÖVP will for the first time be the junior partner of the FPÖ if they form a coalition, making the position of ÖVP leader difficult and undesirable for many.
Following initial media reports that household names such as former party leader Sebastian Kurz, who led a previous coalition with the FPÖ and has since been convicted of perjury, could become ÖVP leader, Austrian media reported overnight. That they are no longer in the running.
That left lesser-known figures like 45-year-old Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, the new secretary general of the Chamber of Commerce.
Meanwhile, the FPO took its message home.
“Austria needs a Chancellor Kickl now,” said X.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
