Austrian Chancellor and Chairman of the Austrian People’s Party (OeVP) Karl Nehammer (left) and Chairman of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) and top candidate Herbert Kickl (right) in Austria The meeting took place in Vienna, Austria, on September 23, 2024 during a pre-election televised debate hosted by ORF.
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Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO) leader Herbert Kickel pledged on Friday to win this weekend’s parliamentary election for a historic first, despite polls showing the race is now too close.
Kickel’s Federal Politburo has stubbornly focused on dissatisfaction with immigration and has held a commanding lead in opinion polls for more than a year, helped by voters’ disapproval of inflation above the EU average and a sluggish Austrian economy. dissatisfied.
However, Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP) has narrowed the gap to within the margin of error as it seeks to portray him as a statesman in contrast to the often abrasive and polarizing Kicker. A stark contrast.
“The people are the wind at our back, the system is our headwind, and the people are always stronger than the system, and we will prove it on Sunday,” Kicker, 55, said in a typically populist speech at the closing ceremony. “Campaign event held in front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the center of Vienna.
“This time we will be first,” he said, stressing that it would be the first time a party founded in the 1950s won a parliamentary election. It beat the OVP in June’s European elections by less than a percentage point, giving it its first national victory of the year.
People walk past an election billboard featuring Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer of the Austrian People’s Party (OeVP) and Herbe of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) on September 24, 2024 in Vienna, Austria Herbet Kickl. Austria is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on September 29.
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Although the number of new arrivals fell sharply last year, Kickel promised tough measures to stem the flow of migrants into landlocked Austria, such as building “Austrian fortresses” that would force people back across the border and stop offering asylum.
The FPO and OVP overlap on other aspects of economic issues such as immigration and tax cuts, but Nehammer described Kickel as an extremist, saying he was open to an alliance with the FPO but that his party would not join a radical extremist. Kerr’s government.
Nehammer himself may have benefited from his response to the severe floods that hit Austria this month.
Whoever wins, they will fall far short of an absolute majority and will need a coalition partner to form a stable government. The only obvious choice for the FPO is the OVP, and the OVP could switch to the FPO, or possibly form a three-way alliance with the Social Democrats and smaller parties.
Nehammer explicitly attacked Kickel at the closing rally, saying he and his party “support centrist politics, oppose radicals, and support stability over chaos. We don’t live by problems, we solve them.”
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