Austria's Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl met with the country's President Alexander Van der Bellen today, fueling speculation that he will be given a mandate to try to form a new government, which would be the first led by the far right since World War II.
The Freedom Party defeated outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehamer's conservative Austrian People's Party in Austria's parliamentary elections in September.
Van der Bellen gave Nehamer a mandate to try to form a new government after Nehamer said he would not enter a government with the Freedom Party and others refused to work with them.
Efforts to form a governing coalition without the far right failed in the first few days of the new year and Nehamer said on Saturday that he would resign.
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The People's Party signaled that it could cooperate with Kikla. There are no guarantees that the negotiations will succeed, but there are no other realistic coalition options left in the current parliament, and polls suggest that new elections could only further strengthen the Freedom Party.
The far right and conservatives have ruled together before, most recently from 2017 to 2019 in the government in which Kikl was interior minister. It failed in the scandal surrounding the then leader of the Freedom Party.
In its election program called "Fortress Austria", the Freedom Party called for the "remigration of illegal aliens" in order to achieve a more "homogeneous" society by strict border control and the suspension of the right to asylum through emergency laws.
The Freedom Party also calls for the lifting of sanctions on Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to withdraw from the European initiative Sky Shield, a missile defense project launched by Germany.
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