Austria's conservative chancellor Karl Nehammer yesterday called on the country's president to entrust the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) with a mandate to form a government, although it seems that its chances of succeeding in this are slim.
The FPO's victory in Sunday's election with around 29 percent of the vote is a historic success for the party founded in the 1950s, whose first leader was an SS officer and Nazi MP.
The FPO, which is pro-Russian and opposes immigration, needs a coalition partner to have a majority in parliament and be able to govern. The other parties said they were not interested.
"In my opinion, it is a good tradition for the winner of the election to be given the task of conducting talks with other parties," Nehamer, the leader of the People's Party (OVP), told reporters.
The OVP took second place in the elections, with about 2,5 percentage points behind the FPO. If they unite with the third-placed Social Democrats, they would have a majority of only one seat and it would not be sustainable.
This means that a three-member coalition with a smaller party like the liberal NEOS would be a more likely option.
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Still, with elections scheduled in two OVP-led provinces this month and next, some party members are wary of marginalizing the FPO too early, for fear of the ultra-right taking away their votes again.
President Aleksander van der Bellen, the former leader of the Greens who oversees the formation of governments, said on Sunday he would meet with parliamentary parties and advised them to talk to each other, leaving options open.
As Reuters writes, it is not clear whether Van der Bellen did this to avoid putting the FPO in charge of forming a government or as a prelude to it. After the last parliamentary elections in 2019, he waited eight days before tasking the then OVP leader Sebastijan Kurc to form a coalition.
Van der Belen expressed reservations about the FPO in general, and especially about the leader of that party, Herbert Kikl, and hinted that he might not allow them to take power. Kikl believes that Van der Belen should follow established practice and task the first-placed party to form a coalition.
"Now it's up to the president to say how he sees the next steps in the process," Nehamer said.
At least one party did not agree with Nehamer.
"I am not in a position to tell the president what to do. I think we show respect for that function if we don't call for anything," NEOS leader Beate Meinl-Rijzinger said at a press conference.
"I don't see what is stopping Kikla from holding talks and seeing if he can form a coalition. He doesn't have to be formally in charge of it".
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