VIENNA: Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen on Sunday announced that he would meet with far-right politician Herbert Kickl as speculation grew that he would ask the Freedom Party leader to form a government.
Van der Bellen made the announcement after meeting with Chancellor Karl Nehammer and others at his presidential palace. Nehammer has announced his intention to resign after coalition talks between his conservative Austrian People’s Party and the centre-left Social Democrats collapsed over the budget.
Nehammer has ruled out working with Kickl, but others within his party are less adamant. Earlier Sunday, the People’s Party nominated its general secretary, Christian Stocker, as interim leader, but the president said Nehammer would remain chancellor for now.
Van der Bellen said that he had spent several hours talking to key officials, after which he got the impression that “the voices within the People’s Party who exclude working with the Freedom Party under its leader Herbert Kickl have become quieter.” The president said that this development has “potentially opened a new path,” which has prompted him to invite Kickl for a meeting on Monday morning.
Kickl’s Freedom Party topped the polls in the autumn’s national election with 29.2 per cent of the vote, but Van der Bellen tasked Nehammer with putting together a new government because no other party was willing to work with Kickl.
That decision drew heavy criticism from the Freedom Party and its supporters, with Kickl saying that it was “not right and not logical” that he did not get a mandate to form a government.
Stocker addressed reporters on Sunday afternoon and confirmed that he had been appointed “unanimously” by his party to serve as interim leader. “I am very honoured and happy,” he said. He also welcomed the decision by the president to meet with Kickl and said that he now expects that the leader of the party that emerged as the clear winner from the last election would be tasked with forming a government.