Austria’s grand coalition government came to the brink of collapse on Friday. Sebastian Kurz, the ambitious 30-year-old foreign minister, in effect ended an agreement between the centre-left Social Democrats (SPÖ) and his conservative People’s party (ÖVP) by demanding an early general election.
Mr Kurz’s move followed the resignation of Reinhold Mitterlehner as the ÖVP leader and vice-chancellor on Wednesday after a dispute with his Social Democratic coalition partners. The foreign minister, who is expected to be formally elected as head of the ÖVP on Sunday, plays a tactical game, believing that his popularity would boost support for his party ahead of a parliamentary election, likely to be held in the autumn.
The SPÖ and the ÖVP have alternated in power at a national level for almost the entire post-war period. Acrimonious bickering over the past few years has left the current government led by the Social Democratic chancellor Christian Kern largely paralysed and cost both mainstream parties voter support. Poll after poll shows the far-right populist Freedom party (FPÖ), which was partly founded by ex-Nazis in the 1950s, is ahead of the two governing parties, with around 30 per cent support. The SPÖ is running second ahead of the ÖVP.
Support for the FPÖ rose as Austria’s economy underperformed European rivals. The party’s popularity was further boosted by Europe’s refugee crisis, which saw more than 100,000 people seeking asylum in Austria over 2015-2016. Initially, the coalition government supported the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “welcome policy” towards refugees fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. But the inflows of refugees and migrants overburdened the system, forcing Vienna to execute an about-turn. The government agreed measures with neighbouring countries, which closed the so-called Balkan route used by asylum-seekers to reach Germany and Sweden. Mr Kurz challenged Ms Merkel’s liberal refugee policy, advocated a hardline stance on Turkey and was behind a law, which prohibits full-face Islamic veils for women in public spaces. He now ranks as Austria’s most popular politician.
In December, the FPÖ candidate, Norbert Hofer, was defeated in the presidential election by Alexander Van der Bellen, a Green politician who ran as an independent on a pro-European platform, but secured a respectable 46.2 per cent of the votes. Austria avoided the embarrassment of being the first country in Western Europe to elect the far-right head of state since the end of the Second World War. Mr Hofer’s loss, however, followed a series of political shocks, including the UK vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s presidential election victory. Mr Van der Bellen has said repeatedly that he will resist appointing Heinz-Christian Strache, the FPÖ leader, as chancellor, because of his anti-European views.
The ÖVP led a coalition with the FPÖ in the 2000s, when the far-right party was led by Jörg Haider. That government was briefly shunned by other European states. Even if the FPÖ wins the next election, Mr Strache is unlikely to strike a coalition deal with either the ÖVP or the SPÖ, which would allow him to become the chancellor.
Foto: Dragan Tatic
