Austria’s president is looking for a solution after other parties said they did not want to work with the far right

VIENNA (AP) — Austria’s president on Wednesday called on the country’s three strongest political parties to talk about possible cooperation after an election won by the far-right Freedom Party, but eschewed the tradition of giving the winner the task of trying to form the new government after others said they would not cooperate with it.

president Alexander Van der Bellen FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl asked current Chancellor Karl Nehammer of the conservative Austrian People’s Party and Andreas Babler of the center-left Social Democrats to contact him at the end of next week.

Whoever leads the next government In order to achieve a parliamentary majority, a coalition must be formed. Nehammer and his party have stated that they would not work with Kickl in government. The other three parties in the new parliament have said they will not work with the Freedom Party at all.

“It is completely new that there is an election winner with whom none of the other parties apparently want to govern,” Van der Bellen told reporters after meeting all party leaders in recent days. He said Kickl told him that his party would go into government “only with him as chancellor.”

The president, who will ultimately have to swear in a new government, said he wanted “clarity for Austria” about whether everyone involved meant what they said. He called on the leaders of the three largest parties “to clarify whether and what mutual cooperation would be fundamentally conceivable.”

Van der Bellen said the idea was to find a way out of the stalemate and avoid “wasting valuable time.”

There is no formal deadline for forming a new government.

The Freedom Party came first in the September 29 election with 28.8% of the vote, ahead of Nehammer’s People’s Party, which received 26.3%. The Social Democrats came third with 21.1%. The outgoing government coalition made up of Nehammer’s party and the environmentalists Greens lost their majority.

The Freedom Party capitalized on fears about immigration, inflation, Russia’s war in Ukraine and other issues to achieve its best result ever. She previously served as a junior partner in People’s Party-led governments.

Kickl, a 55-year-old with a penchant for provocation and chairman of the Freedom Party since 2021could be the main obstacle to taking power this time.

If Kickl cannot form a government, the alternative would be a coalition of the People’s Party with the center-left Social Democrats and probably the smaller liberal party Neos.

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Moulson reported from Berlin.