VIENNA (Reuters) – The leader of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP), Chancellor Karl Nehammer, said on Tuesday after a meeting with far-right Freedom Party (FPO) leader Herbert Kickl that he remains opposed to joining a government with Kickl in it.
The eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO won a parliamentary election for the first time on Sept. 29 but with 29% of the vote it would need to assemble a coalition to command a majority in parliament and form a government. Kickl says he should be chancellor but other parties have ruled out an alliance.
President Alexander Van der Bellen, who oversees the formation of governments, said last week the leaders of the three parties with the most votes should meet this week to see if they “really mean what they have said”.
“I will not be an enabler for Herbert Kickl,” Nehammer told a brief press conference after his meeting with the FPO leader, the first of the three face-to-face encounters.
While Nehammer is the only party leader to have left the door open in principle to a coalition with the FPO, he has repeatedly said before and since the election that the OVP will not join a government with Kickl in it. Kickl insists he would lead any government with the FPO in it.
The FPO has openly suggested that the OVP oust or sideline Nehammer to make a coalition possible but the OVP’s leadership reaffirmed its support for him within days of the election. Both sides’ positions have only become more entrenched.
Kickl has said any coalition without the FPO would be undemocratic since his party won the election, but the OVP disagrees, saying the vast majority voted against the FPO.
While there is no apparent path to power for the FPO without the OVP, the OVP could in principle lead a three-way coalition with the third-placed Social Democrats and a smaller party such as the liberal Neos.
(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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