Austrian conservatives choose interim chief after chancellor quits

By Francois Murphy

VIENNA (Reuters) -Austria’s ruling conservatives picked Secretary-Common Christian Stocker as interim successor to Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Austrian media reported on Sunday, after Nehammer give up as his makes an attempt to kind a coalition authorities with out the far proper fell aside.

There was no fast remark from the Folks’s Occasion (OVP), and Nehammer solely advised reporters after the occasion’s disaster management assembly on Sunday that “necessary and proper choices” had been taken.

The shock collapse of three- after which two-party talks aimed toward cobbling collectively a centrist coalition that would function a bulwark towards the far-right Freedom Occasion (FPO) after the FPO got here first in September’s parliamentary election leaves President Alexander Van der Bellen with few choices.

A snap election with assist for the eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO nonetheless rising or an about-face through which Van der Bellen duties FPO chief Herbert Kickl with forming a authorities at the moment are the almost definitely choices, with solely restricted scope for alternate options or taking part in for time.

“It’s not a simple scenario,” Markus Wallner, the governor of Vorarlberg, the westernmost of Austria’s 9 provinces, advised reporters earlier than the OVP management assembly on the chancellor’s workplace on Sunday morning.

“I consider we should do every thing we will now to keep away from sliding in direction of a nationwide disaster.”

Wallner mentioned he opposed a snap election since that might delay the arrival of a brand new authorities by months. OVP governors are a part of the management.

A spokesperson for Van der Bellen mentioned he was on account of tackle the nation at 2:45 p.m. (1345 GMT). Nehammer crossed the street separating their places of work earlier to report back to Van der Bellen on the OVP management assembly.

Nehammer insisted throughout and after the election marketing campaign that his occasion wouldn’t govern with Kickl as a result of he was an excessive amount of of a conspiracy theorist and posed a safety threat whereas on the similar time saying a lot of Kickl’s occasion was reliable.

Nehammer’s successor will almost definitely be extra open to a coalition with the FPO, which is formally allied with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz occasion.

GROWING SUPPORT FOR FPO

The FPO gained September’s election with round 29% of the vote, and opinion polls counsel its assist has solely grown since then, extending its lead over the OVP and Social Democrats to greater than 10 share factors whereas their assist has shrunk.

The OVP and FPO overlap on numerous points, significantly taking a tricky line on immigration, to the purpose that the FPO has accused the OVP of stealing its concepts.

The 2 ruled collectively from late 2017 till 2019, when a video-sting scandal involving the then-leader of the FPO prompted their coalition’s collapse. On the state stage, they govern collectively in 5 of 9 states, together with in OVP average Wallner’s Vorarlberg.

The nationwide dynamic is now totally different as a result of in the event that they have been to kind an alliance the OVP would for the primary time be junior companion to the FPO, making the place of OVP chief troublesome and undesirable to many.

After preliminary media experiences that family names like former occasion chief Sebastian Kurz, who led the final coalition with the FPO and has since been convicted of perjury, might turn into OVP chief, Austrian media reported in a single day that they have been not within the working.

That left lesser-known figures comparable to new Chamber of Commerce Secretary-Common Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, 45.

In the meantime, the FPO hammered residence its message.

“Austria wants a Chancellor Kickl now,” it mentioned on X.