The Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the Executive Chancellor, which leads the conservative party, can breathe a sigh of relief. Karl Nehammer. This is his opinion Thomas Hoover As a political expert, he was published by the prestigious Vienna newspaper Die Presse He cites. Hofer made the statement after the ÖVP party won the regional elections in Vorarlberg on Sunday. Although it achieved the worst result in the party's history in Austria's far-western region (since its support never fell below forty percent there), it was still ten percentage points ahead of its main rival, the far-right Freedom Party. (FPÖ).
The ÖVP got 38.3% and the FPÖ got 28% in one of Austria's richest provinces. If we look at individual electoral districts, the ÖVP's lead is astonishing: in 91 out of 96 beat.
On the other hand, the Green Party, which started out as a coalition partner of the Austrian People's Party at both local and national levels, failed miserably in Vorarlberg (they lost six percentage points and their support fell to 12.5%), just as they had in the whole of Austria. In this regard, Hofer talked about the possibility of removing the Green Party from the local government in all Austrian provinces, and of course from the national government as well. Die Presse reports that environmentalists previously ruled six out of nine provinces, but now they may lose their last positions, because the local winner, Marcus Wallner It is possible that the ÖVP provincial governor will not form a new government with them.
According to the newspaper, the victory gave Nehammer, who has been in charge of the People's Party-Green coalition in Vienna since 2021, some relief. The Prime Minister successfully brought his party into second place behind the Freedom Party in the national elections just over two weeks ago, on 29 September. The vote ratio for the two parties was 28.8:26.3 in favor of the Freedom Party at the national level. This is how the Nehammer government submitted its resignation Alexander van der Bellen As head of state, the ÖVP party leader has run Austria as executive chancellor ever since.
It would have been a serious blow to Nehammer then if Vorarlberg, one of the old ÖVP strongholds, was lost. However, Markus Wallner, the governor of Vorarlberg, chose a clever tactic to save his party. After the FPÖ got just two percentage points below the ÖVP in Vorarlberg in the general election two weeks ago, Wallner interpreted the regional vote as a personal duel against the local FPÖ candidate. He is pro-freedom Christophe Beachville On the other hand, he also managed to mobilize the camp of those who did not necessarily vote for the People's Party.
Despite this, the FPÖ is also gaining strength in Vorarlberg, where the FPÖ has doubled its support: the percentage of votes cast for it has risen from 14 to 28 percent. It is true that the ÖVP lost only 5%, in contrast to the national level, where it fell by 11 points.
It is therefore expected that Wallner will not continue to form the previous coalition government with the Green Party, because the two parties combined will only have one very fragile majority in the regional parliament. From his comments, Austrian analysts conclude that he prefers cooperation with the FPÖ, having formulated the priorities of the new regional leadership (on immigration and housing) after the elections, which the FPÖ emphasized in the election campaign. Wallner also stated that he sees a strong demand for change in the region.
The two parties' platforms have many similarities in content, and the ÖVP and FPÖ will have a two-thirds majority in the regional legislature. Wallner has from the beginning ruled out more complex coalitions consisting of more than two parties, so the weak Social Democrats (SPÖ) and Liberals (Neos) are unlikely to succeed in Vorarlberg.
At the same time, the fact that the ÖVP will join the FPÖ at the provincial level does not mean at all that this will also happen at the national level. Vorarlberg will therefore be the fourth province in which the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition will be formed.
According to ORF experts, this is because the ÖVP has already secured its regional leader position in every province where it joined the Freedom Party. This means that all these alliances were created in a constellation where the ÖVP is the largest force – and this happened in Lower and Upper Austria as well previously.
This will not be the case at the national level, because the Freedom Party is relatively the winner, even if it wins by only 2.5 percentage points over the Austrian People's Party. However, for “historical reasons”, the People's Party is unlikely to join a coalition led by a chancellor from the Freedom Party of Austria. Experience so far suggests that if the ÖVP enters a coalition as a junior partner, it will achieve a disastrous result in the next election.
Moreover, in the September 29 elections, the FPÖ did not win, the ÖVP did not lose much, and the VP was not even in a decisive position. The Freedom Party is so extreme that only the ÖVP approves of it. At the same time, the leader of the Freedom Party, Nehammer, refuses. Herbert Keckel person – but not the Freedom Party as a whole, if a coalition is formed. Thus, a coalition between the People's Party and the Freedom Party could only be formed if Kickl resigned from his government positions on his own or if Nehammer failed as head of the Austrian People's Party. This is why Vorarlberg was important, because the election strengthened Nehammer's positions within his party.
In this way, Kickel says in vain that he is not ready to back down and continues to insist that the President of the Republic ask him to form the government. In addition, he is now trying to give power to the head of state whom he described as a dementia and a mummy at an event last year. In an unprecedented manner, Van der Bellen has not yet asked Kickl to form a government. What's more, the President of the Republic came out publicly last week and said that a stalemate had arisen after the elections. Therefore, he called on the three major parties, the Freedom Party, the Austrian People's Party, and the Social Democratic Party, to begin negotiations on forming a stable government coalition.
Therefore, there is still no urgent need for the second place with all the trump cards, which is the People's Party and its Chancellor Nehammer, when forming the government. Moreover, after the Vorarlberg elections, he became the second-in-command of the ÖVP, Christian Stoker The Secretary-General also confirmed that they are not ready to allow Kickel to enter the government.
We previously analyzed in detail why Austria's political partners rejected Kelt. Years ago, the leader of the Freedom Party, as Interior Minister, played a key role in fatally weakening one of Austria's intelligence services.
On the other hand, Nehammer can not only decide in favor of the Freedom Party: the ÖVP-SPÖ-Neos coalition, i.e. conservative, social democratic and liberal cooperation, also looks viable at the national level. Most Austrian experts consider the formation of such a coalition most likely, as the People's Party and Nehammer will retain the position of chancellor in this formation. In this case, the candidates who finished second, third and fourth in the elections could unite and still obtain a safe majority in the federal parliament.
However, the negotiations have not yet reached the point where the parties can also negotiate with NEOS. The discussions, which will be held with the participation of the three main parties, will begin on Tuesday, based on the proposal of the President of the Republic. Here, positions are unlikely to converge quickly: Kickl insists on his role in the government, so there is currently no chance of the Freedom Party entering the government. So the question is whether the SPÖ, which is considered more left-wing than usual, is able to agree on a potential coalition with the People's Party. Left-wing leader of the Socdems party, Andreas Babler At the moment he seems ready to negotiate, however
