Posted originally on the CTH on September 30, 2024 | Sundance

In Austria the Freedom Party (FPO) consisting of Austria-First populists, has won the largest vote of support from the electorate. However, just like Germany, France and the Netherlands, the lesser parties within current government have pledged to unite and form a government against the largest bloc.

The election platform of the Freedom Party was called “Fortress Austria,” outlining popular positions: strict border controls, deportation of “uninvited foreigners,” the end to sanctions against Russia, the end of military aid to Ukraine, and to walk away from the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany.

The overall positions are pragmatic and popular.  The proposed moderate energy policies would likely drop prices. The Freedom Party is led by Herbert Kickl, who has pledged a more pragmatic form of government, while criticizing the elites in Brussels. The Freedom Party won the largest support bloc in the election with 29.1 percent of the vote. The media immediately labeled them “far-right.”

In the USA two parties represent the republican form of government; they unite on policy and we have a UniParty outcome.  In many nations throughout Europe, within the parliamentary process that structures government, they have an assembly parties that similarly unite and block the insurgency of the major party.

The Austrian People’s Party and the Social Democrats have agreed to unite and stop the Austria-First Freedom Party from forming a government.  They refuse to allow the nation to be led by Herbert Kickl.  As a consequence, the largest party in Austria, the party with the most popular positions and the greatest number of votes, will be blocked from governing.

(Via The Guardian) – […] Turnout was high at about 78%.

Profiting from a rightwing surge in many parts of Europe and taking Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as a model, the FPÖ capitalised on fears around migration, asylum and crime heightened by the August cancellation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna over an alleged Islamist terror plot. Mounting inflation, tepid economic growth and lingering resentment over strict government measures during Covid dovetailed into a huge leap in support for the FPÖ since the last election in 2019.

Its polarising lead candidate, Herbert Kickl, who campaigned using the “people’s chancellor” moniker once used to describe the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, said he was ready to form a government with “each and every one” of the parties in parliament.

“We have written a piece of history together today,” he told cheering party supporters in Vienna. “We have opened a door to a new era.”

“We don’t need to change our position, because we have always said that we’re ready to lead a government, we’re ready to push forward this change in Austria side by side with the people,” Kickl said in an appearance alongside other party leaders on ORF public television. “The other parties should ask themselves where they stand on democracy,” he added, arguing that they should “sleep on the result”.

Nehammer called the result, which will send shock waves through Europe, “bitter” while his defence minister, Klaudia Tanner, admitted the debacle for the governing parties was a “wake-up call”.

Because it failed to win an absolute majority, the FPÖ will need a partner to govern. Unlike the other centrist parties, the ÖVP has not ruled out cooperating with the far right in the next government, as it has twice in the past in taboo-breaking alliances at the national level.

Nehammer, however, repeated on Sunday that a scenario in which Kickl, a former hardline interior minister, became chancellor was a non-starter, setting up a potential showdown in which the FPÖ would have to either jettison Kickl or take a backseat in government to win the ÖVP’s support. (read more)