Austria’s president gives Kickl the mandate to try to form a government

# Austria’s president gives Kickl the mandate to try to form a government

*Event date: 2025-01-06.*

Austria has entered a new phase of post-election uncertainty after President Alexander van der Bellen formally tasked Herbert Kickl, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, with trying to form a government.

The evidence says van der Bellen announced the move after a meeting with Kickl in Vienna and asked him to open talks with the conservative ÖVP. That is a major step because it effectively acknowledges that the previous efforts to build a stable coalition have failed, leaving the far-right FPÖ in a position to try to convert its election result into governing authority.

Kickl, who is 56, told the president he believed he could find workable solutions in negotiations. Van der Bellen said he had discussed with him Austria’s difficult economic climate, the security threat posed by Russia’s war in Ukraine and concerns about media freedom. The president also said he had not taken the decision lightly, a sign of the political sensitivity around giving the FPÖ such an opening.

The numbers explain why the president’s hand has been forced. The FPÖ won 28.85 percent of the vote in September’s election, ahead of the ÖVP on 26.3 percent and the Social Democrats on 21.1 percent. Since then, the parties that tried to keep Kickl out of the chancellery have failed to assemble an alternative majority. The liberal Neos walked away from talks, and then negotiations between the ÖVP and SPÖ also collapsed.

That breakdown left the president with few practical choices. The alternative to giving Kickl the mandate would have been another prolonged deadlock, something Austria can ill afford as it faces economic weakness and a more volatile European security environment.

The move does not guarantee that Kickl will become chancellor, but it gives him the first formal chance to turn the FPÖ’s electoral strength into a coalition deal. The most likely partner remains the ÖVP, which has governed with the FPÖ before, including in the 2000s and again between 2017 and 2019 under ÖVP-led governments.

Those earlier coalitions matter because they show that cooperation between the two parties is not unprecedented, even if it remains controversial. The present situation is different, however, because the FPÖ is now the strongest force in parliament and Kickl is the politician most closely associated with the party’s hard-right turn.

Outgoing chancellor Karl Nehammer, who had opposed any coalition with the FPÖ, has already announced he will resign as both head of government and party leader. Christian Stocker, his interim successor at the ÖVP’s helm, has signaled openness to talks with the freedom party, which gives Kickl a possible route forward.

The scene outside the presidential palace also captured the tension. Demonstrators gathered while van der Bellen met Kickl, and the ORF said roughly 500 people were present. The turnout suggests that any move toward an FPÖ-led government will face strong resistance from critics who see the party as a risk to democratic norms.

For now, Austria has a mandate rather than a government. But the mandate itself is politically significant: it moves the FPÖ from the margins of negotiation to the center of the state’s next attempt to produce a workable coalition.