Austrian ‘whizz-kid’ brings right wing back into power

Vienna, December 16

Austria is set to become the only western European country with a far-right party in the government after the anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe) and Sebastian Kurz’s conservatives struck a coalition deal, capping a year of successes for Europe’s nationalist movements.

As the parties met to rubber-stamp the accord struck on late Friday, Herbert Kickl, the FPOe’s secretary general and Austria’s next interior minister, said he had “very, very good feeling”. “Nobody has anything to fear,” Kickl said, one of six FPOe ministers in the new government including defence and foreign affairs. Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache, 48, will be vice-chancellor.

The agreement reached by Sebastian Kurz’s People’s Party (OeVP) and the FPOe sets Kurz, 31, up to become chancellor and also the world’s youngest leader. Kurz and Strache were to unveil their programme soon, with the government likely to be sworn in on Monday.

The OeVP came first in the October snap elections after Kurz — who is known as “wunderwuzzi” or “whizz-kid” — rebranded the formerly staid party as his own personal “movement”, promising to get tough on immigration and to lower taxes.

“Our aims are quite clear. We want to ease the tax burden for people, we want to strengthen our economy, which will bolster our social system,” Kurz said late Friday. “And first and foremost we want to increase security in our country, including by combatting illegal immigration,” Kurz said.

The anti-immigration FPOe came third in the election with 26 per cent of the vote, which was double the stunning 13 per cent notched up by the far-right Alternative for Germany  in elections the month before. Both Kurz and Strache stoked concerns about immigration following a record influx in 2015, and also took advantage of voter fatigue with the OeVP’s previous “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats. Their success was mirrored in elections elsewhere in Europe this year. — Agencies