 "Herbert Kickl, leader of the Freedom Party of Austria waves to supporters, in Vienna, Austria, after polls closed in the country's national election. AP")
The country of Austria recorded a first on Sunday (September 29). The country’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), led by 55-year-old Herbert Kickl, has secured a win in the national parliamentary elections, a first since World War II.
Preliminary data reveals that the Freedom Party secured 29.2 per cent of the vote, with Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party coming in second with 26.5 per cent. Meanwhile, the centre-left Social Democrats were in third place with 21 per cent.
Following the victory, Kickl told cheering supporters, “We have written a piece of history together today. “We have opened a door to a new era.”
However, for Kickl to be Austria’s next chancellor, he will need help from a coalition partner to attain a majority in parliament. Speaking on the same, he said was ready to work with “every one” of the parties in parliament. “Our hand is outstretched in all directions,” he was quoted as saying.
For now, rivals have said they won’t work with Kickl in government.
But who exactly is Kickl? What are his policies? And why are other leaders wary of joining hands with him?
Kickl’s personal life
Kickl was born in 1968 in rural Carinthia in southern Austria. His schoolmates remember him as a contrarian in army surplus clothes.
The 55-year-old, who is known for his thick-rimmed spectacles, studied philosophy, history, communication and political science. The Economist reports that Kickl never finished his philosophy degree at Vienna University, nor his military service. Instead, inspired by Jörg Haider, he joined the FPÖ in 1995.
Little is known about his personal life other than that he loves extreme sports and long hikes. However, Kickl has mastered the world of social media. He has been far more present on TikTok and Instagram than on the campaign trail and has avoided debates and interviews.
As Gernot Bauer and Robert Treichler, who recently penned a biography on Kickl, said in an Irish Times report, “For a politician, especially a party leader, Kickl is surprisingly shy and inhibited. “Kickl doesn’t want any unpleasant surprises, he wants to retain control of the story.”
Rise and rise of Kickl
After joining the FPÖ in 1995 — for the unaware, the party was founded by the Nazis — Kickl was elected to parliament in 2006 and was tasked by the party to run its media operations for 13 years. It was during this time that he penned several of the party’s slogans and rhetoric — some being termed as xenophobic.
As the years rolled on, he rose to the top and is credited with helping the party’s rise in popularity too. In 2017, he was appointed as interior minister after the centre-right Austrian People’s Party formed a coalition with FPÖ under Sebastian Kurz’s chancellorship. In his time as minister, he questioned the European human rights convention and even proposed renaming refugee facilities “departure centres”.
He was later fired owing to the cash-for-favours sting operation against then FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache.
In 2021, he took over the leadership of the FPÖ amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It was amid the pandemic that Kickl used the hatred against lockdowns and vaccinations to garner support.
Kickl’s ambition to be ‘Volkskanzler’
However, many view Kickl as a danger for Austria. He views Hungary’s Viktor Orban as his hero and many of his policies are Orbanesque.
For instance, he is anti-immigration and for this election came up with the vision to build “Fortress Austria”. He wishes to overhaul Austria’s immigration system, registering all new arrivals and detaining them in specialist facilities. The party is also proposing to introduce “remigration” of “unwanted strangers” — deporting migrants to their country of origin.
Similar to Orban, he is also seemingly a champion of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He has promised to end Austrian support for Ukraine and veto any new EU sanctions against Moscow if he becomes chancellor.
He has also spoken of becoming Volkskanzler (people’s chancellor), a term that many associate with Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. However, he denies that Volkskanzler is a Nazi reference, adding that numerous politicians in the past have claimed the term.
Moreover, some believe that a slogan in this election campaign — Thy will be done — invokes the previous line in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come”—in German, Dein Reich komme, a reference to the Third Reich.
He has also publicly praised the Identitarian movement — Europe’s answer to America’s alt-right.
It is because of these reasons, perhaps, that Kickl will find it difficult to find coalition partners. In fact, Austria’s Karl Nehammer, of the rival conservative Austrian People’s Party, has called the 55-year-old a “right-wing extremist.” Moreover, Andreas Babler, leader of the left-wing Social Democratic Party, even told Kickl during a TV debate, “I think you are extremely dangerous.”
A former acquaintance of Kickl also told the Irish Times that the 55-year-old’s mistrust of everyone around him also makes it difficult to be his ally.
But another chimes in, saying to the newspaper, “Herbert reminds me of someone with a substance addiction, but in his case the substance is political moods and majorities. He’s an expert at spotting what people need now, and manipulates language to shift the public mood. He loves recognition for that but, like all addicts, he will never be satisfied.”
Even others agree that if Kickl came to power in Austria, the country’s role in the EU would be “significantly different”. As Kathrin Stainer-Haemmerle, a political science professor at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences told Reuters, “Kickl has often said that [Hungarian Prime Minister] Viktor Orban is a role model for him and he will stand by him.”
With inputs from agencies