Afp and Ap
La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, September 30, 2024, p. 31
Vienna. Five years after experiencing the debacle, the Austrian extreme right yesterday achieved a historic victory in the legislative elections, although without guarantee of being able to govern.
Savor this result. Together we made history. What we have achieved exceeds all my dreamsdeclared the leader of Austria’s far-right, Herbert Kickl, to his supporters gathered in Vienna.
The Freedom Party (FPÖ) obtained 28.8 percent of the vote, which means an increase of 13 points compared to the 2019 elections, according to the scrutiny of almost all the votes.
The conservatives of the current ruling party, the Austrian People’s Party ÖVP, led by Chancellor Karl Nehammer, came in second with 26.3 percent.
We cannot reach to the extreme right, Nehammer lamented when addressing his supporters.
But Kickl is far from guaranteed the job of head of government and may even be left out of a coalition cabinet, as no party wants to be associated with his formation.
In a message after knowing the first projections, the leader stated that the country must reconnect with the needs of the population. Our hand is stretched out in all directions.
In a context of the rise of far-right parties in Europe, this formation founded by former Nazi officers in 1956 registers better results than the polls predicted.
The far right benefited from frustration over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic. He also tapped into concerns about immigration.
In its electoral program, titled Fortress Austria, the Freedom Party advocates the remigration of uninvited foreignersto achieve a more nation homogeneous through tight border control and the suspension of the right to asylum through an emergency law.
After five years of an unprecedented alliance of conservatives and environmentalists in power, the advance of the far right represents an earthquake in Austria, where the FPÖ previously formed the government, but never led a national vote.
Kickl arouses fear, the FPÖ is always agitated and never has anything constructive to contributesaid Theres Friesacher, a 29-year-old researcher interviewed by AFP outside a polling station in Vienna, recalling the chaos and corruption every time they were in the Executive.
This former Minister of the Interior, 55 years old, campaigned in these elections, in which more than 6.3 million people were called to vote out of the 9 million inhabitants of the country, with slogans such as Dare to try something new.
The FPÖ joined the Executive for the first time in 2000, which sparked protests in the country and sanctions from the European Union.
In the Kickl campaign he criticized the bloc’s sanctions against Russia, attacked the outgoing government and vindicated the concept of remigrationwhich involves stripping the nationality of people of foreign origin who consider that they have not integrated into the country.
