Far-Right blocked from government in Austria despite winning election
After five months of deadlock, the conservative Peoples' Party, centre-Left Social Democrats and liberal Neos reached a three-party coalition agreement on Thursday for the first time in Austrian history.
Christian Stocker, the conservatives' leader, will become chancellor, and Andreas Babler, leader of the Social Democrats, vice chancellor.
With the so-called 'firewall against the far-Right' just about holding – as it has done in neighbouring Germany – Herbert Kickl, the FPO leader, branded the arrangement a 'coalition of losers' and called for a snap election.
The FPO came out on top in September's election with 28.9 per cent of the vote, although it did not win enough seats in parliament to form a government.
As all other main parties refused to work with the FPO, Alexander Van der Bellen, Austria's president, initially asked Karl Nehammer, the then-conservatives' leader and incumbent chancellor, to attempt to create a government.
After this effort collapsed in January, the president gave the task of forming a coalition to the FPO, as the 'firewall' – a pledge by mainstream parties not to work with or form governments with parties deemed too Right-wing – is not as entrenched in Austria as it is in Germany.
In Germany, conservative Friedrich Merz's attempt to toughen migration laws with the help of the far-Right Alternative for Germany party fell apart last month. Some members of Merz's party, the Christian Democratic Union, refused to support the measure.
The FPO, who have governed Austria twice before, ultimately failed to create a government with their country's own conservatives due to disagreements over Russia, with the FPO said to favour warmer relations with Vladimir Putin.
After the collapse of the FPO's attempts in January, the mainstream parties attempted once to put together a coalition.
The newly-reached deal has been referred to as the 'sugar coalition' because their parties' colours resemble that of jelly-beans.
The alliance is likely to be unwieldy and driven by desperation to avoid new elections that the FPO would likely win more emphatically than it did in September, as polls suggest support for the party has surged to 34 per cent.
On Thursday Mr Kickl said: 'Today is not the end, I'll be back, no question.'
Austria is often seen as the bellwether for collaboration between conservatives and the hard-Right in German-speaking countries, as FPO's first inclusion in a government was in partnership with the conservatives in 2000.
It once again entered government under the conservatives in 2017.
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