Vienna:
Austria’s ruling conservatives chose Secretary General Christian Stocker as interim successor to Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Austrian media reported on Sunday, after Nehammer resigned as his efforts to form a coalition government without the far right fell apart.
There was no immediate comment from the People’s Party (OVP), and Nehammer only told reporters after the party’s crisis leadership meeting on Sunday that “important and correct decisions” had been made.
The surprise collapse of three- and then two-party talks aimed at cobbling together a centrist coalition that could serve as a bulwark against the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) after the FPO came first in September’s parliamentary elections leaves President Alexander Van der Bellen left with few options.
A snap election in which support for the Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO continues to grow, or a change in which Van der Bellen tasks FPO leader Herbert Kickl with forming a government, are now the most likely options, with only limited room for alternatives or playing for time.
“It is not an easy situation,” Markus Wallner, the governor of Vorarlberg, the westernmost of Austria’s nine provinces, told reporters before the OVP leadership meeting at the chancellor’s office on Sunday morning.
“I believe we must do everything we can now to prevent us from sliding into a national crisis.”
Wallner said he was against early elections because it would delay the arrival of a new government by months. OVP governors are part of the leadership.
A spokesman for Van der Bellen said he would address the nation at 2.45pm (1345 GMT). Nehammer earlier crossed the road separating their offices to report to Van der Bellen about the OVP leadership meeting.
Nehammer insisted during and after the election campaign that his party would not govern with Kickl because he was too much of a conspiracy theorist and posed a security risk, while at the same time saying that much of Kickl’s party was trustworthy.
Nehammer’s successor will most likely be more open to a coalition with the FPO, which is formally linked to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party.
GROWING SUPPORT FOR FPO
The FPO won the September elections with around 29% of the vote, and opinion polls show that support has only increased since then, expanding its lead over the OVP and the Social Democrats to more than 10 percentage points, while their support has shrunk.
The OVP and the FPO overlap on several issues, most notably taking a hard line on immigration, to the point that the FPO has accused the OVP of stealing its ideas.
The two ruled together from late 2017 until 2019, when a video scandal involving the then leader of the FPO led to the collapse of their coalition. At the state level, they govern together in five of the nine states, including moderate Wallner’s Vorarlberg.
The national dynamic is different now because if they were to form an alliance, the OVP would be a junior partner of the FPO for the first time, which would make the position of OVP leader difficult and undesirable for many.
After initial media reports that well-known names such as former party leader Sebastian Kurz, who led the last coalition with the FPO and has since been convicted of perjury, could become OVP leader, Austrian media reported overnight that they would not were in the race longer.
That left lesser-known figures such as the new secretary general of the Chamber of Commerce, Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, 45.
Meanwhile, the FPO delivered its message clearly.
“Austria now needs a Chancellor Kickl,” X said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)