Austria’s far-right Freedom Party emerges major winner

Following the pattern in the Netherlands and in France, in Austria, too, the far-right anti-immigration party emerged a leading player in the national election. The Freedom Party (FPO) won 28.8 per cent of the vote while the conservatives slipped to the second position with 26.3 per cent.

This does not enable the Freedom Party to form the government on its own, and the other parties have declared that they would not form a coalition with the extreme right party. This would mean that the conservatives and the socialists (21.1 per cent) and the liberals (9.2 per cent) would form a three-party coalition, which would be a first for a country of nine million.

Freedom Party members are celebrating their victory, and their leader, Herbert Kickl, 55, declared, “We have written a piece of history together today. We have opened a door to a new era.” Political analyst Thomas Hofer told the French news agency AFP, “This is certainly an earthquake and sends shockwaves through all the other parties.”

The Freedom Party is also unwilling to soften its position on immigration and other issues which would allow the conservative People’s Party to form a coalition. There was a coalition government of the two parties in 2000 and again in 2019 but they did not last. But incumbent Chancellor Karl Nehammer ruled out forming a coalition with Kickl. He said Kickl and his party posed a danger to Austrian democracy. On his part, Kickl has made it clear that his party would not have to change its position and his hands are stretched out in all directions, meaning that his party is willing to form a coalition government with any of the parties.

But like all far-right parties on the European continent, the Freedom Party is not just against migrants, but it also supports Russia in Moscow’s war with Ukraine, it is opposed to aid being provided to Ukraine. Also, the party is opposed to the European Union (EU), and it feels that some of the powers in EU should revert to the member states. Kickl said that his idol is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Urban.

Unlike in many other European countries, the rise of the extreme right parties in German-speaking countries, Austria and Germany, raises apprehensions far higher because of the Nazi past in these two countries. Adolf Hitler was an Austrian, and when he became Chancellor of Germany, the first move he made was to force the union of Austria and Germany, called the ‘Anschluss’. The Freedom Party’s rhetoric has echoes of the Nazi party of the old. Kick lhs called himself the ‘Volkskanzler”, the people’s chancellor, a term used for Hitler in the 1930s.

The conservative and the socialist parties in Europe, which have held the reins of power since the end of the Second World War, are unable to cope with the pressures of migration, with the strains of the market economy. And the far-right parties are exploiting people’s fears on these issues.

The far-right parties in France, in Italy, in the Netherlands, and now in Austria, have stoked the fears and anxieties of the people but they do not have any solutions to revive the economy. They are also aware that stopping the migrants would not solve the economic problems of Europe. Once in power, they do not have any magic wand to strengthen the economy and end migration.

But the right-wing populism has its appeal when the Europeans are experiencing hard times. The conservatives in Europe are opposed to the far-right because they fear, and rightly so, that what is at stake is democracy and the freedoms of the people.