Austrian Three-Party Coalition Fails: Far-Right Now in Charge

ÖVP leader and Chancellor Nehammer then said he would step down soon. Meanwhile, President Van der Bellen has asked the recent election winner, FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, to form a new government. This has plunged Austrian politics into a highly uncertain situation.

The Neos liberals stated last weekend that the two traditional parties were unwilling to make enough concessions and wanted to continue as much as possible in the old way. The ÖVP argue that the social democrats want budget cuts that are too drastic, while the social democrats claim the conservatives want to clean up too little.

In the parliamentary elections in September, the far-right Freedom Party achieved a historic victory with 29% of the votes, followed by the conservative ÖVP (26%) and the social-democratic SPÖ (21%). The liberal Neos and the Greens received significantly smaller percentages.

All parties have so far refused to cooperate with the far-right pro-Nazi and pro-Putin party FPÖ. Therefore, President Alexander Van der Bellen had tasked the ÖVP and SPÖ with forming a coalition together. To achieve a workable majority, they included the liberal Neos as a third party. Those negotiations began in November 2024 but were difficult from the start.

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