A few minutes before 6:00 p.m. on Friday, the bells of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the symbol of Vienna, begin to ring. It is the only moment in two hours that the John Otti Band stops playing all-time hits at the final campaign rally of the Austrian far-right. The Freedom Party (FPÖ) leads the polls for this Sunday’s parliamentary elections with around 27% ―followed very closely by the Christian Democrats, now in Government, with between 25% and 26%― and has chosen the central square to encourage its militants. But not alone. The historical leader of the ultras, Jörg Haider (died in 2008), gave his speech in the same place to close the electoral race in 1999, when the formation achieved its best result so far in parliamentary elections with 26.9%, which It was not enough to head the Executive. Herbert Kickl, its current top leader, intends to beat the record, win general elections for the first time and head towards the Chancellery to turn Austria into a “fortress” for its citizens and against “massive” immigration, he says after jumping on stage. surrounded by a sea of Austrian flags and blue balloons, the color of the FPÖ.
If they win, the ultras would need a coalition partner, which they do not have at the moment. Conservative Chancellor (ÖVP), Karl Nehammer, describes Kickl as a “security danger”, although he has not completely ruled out the FPÖ, where he believes there are “reasonable people”. The Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the Greens consider him a threat to democracy, and the liberals of Neos do not want pacts with him either. This Saturday, all the parties have expressed rejection of the ultras after publishing the newspaper Der Standard a video of a funeral that was supposedly attended on the same Friday by members and some candidates of the FPÖ and in which the media claims that a Nazi SS anthem was sung. A group of Jewish students announced a complaint. The ultra party, through the Austrian agency APA, described as “disgrace” that a “particular” funeral in whose organization they did not participate is wanted to be used against them.
Kickl, 55, began his political career in the kitchen of the party. He wrote speeches, strategized and devised shocking slogans, first in the last decades of the last century for Haider, who shocked Europe with statements that relativized the Nazi horror, and then with Heinz-Christian Strache, the folksy leader whose career collapsed in 2019. when a video recorded in Ibiza was released in which he secretly offered public contracts to a false Russian oligarch. With Strache he entered the coalition government of the conservative Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) with the ultras as Minister of the Interior, but had to leave office together with his then boss after the scandal. Kickl then prepared to revive the party, which fell to 16.2% in the early elections by the Ibiza case. “We don’t play for ties. We go out to win,” he declared before the party assembly that confirmed him as leader in June 2021.
In the last phase of the campaign, marked by serious flooding in the country due to the storm Boris,Kickl has tried to be somewhat more restrained than usual, but in his messages he fuels extreme polarization, with a speech with xenophobic overtones that places Austrians against migrants and asylum seekers, Christian values against “political Islamism”, the right against the left, those at the top – the “system”, as he calls it – against those at the bottom and Austria against the European Union, where its model is the Hungarian ultranationalist Viktor Orbán.
“Most of its positions are not the majority of the population, except perhaps in the case of migration, but in recent years, the FPÖ has positioned itself on prominent issues and that is enough to reach between 20% and 30%. %,” says Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik, a political scientist at the University of Vienna. During the pandemic, the FPÖ championed criticism of the Government and the rejection of vaccination by Austrians. It also stands out as the party that calls the fight against climate change “hysteria”, and is the only one favorable to Russia and that rejects aid to Ukraine under the mantle of Austria’s neutrality, a status supported by 80% of the population.
“If someone views migration and the EU with skepticism, believes that we should not get involved in Russia’s war in Ukraine, thinks that the anti-covid provisions were harassment and that the measures against climate change go too far, then they already have a party that represents these positions,” summarizes the expert. The slogan of the campaign program brings it all together: “Austria, a fortress”, in which its citizens come first, even if they have to eliminate the rights of foreigners or violate international laws.
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Kickl’s is a speech without complexes. “What I say is not extreme right, but normal,” he says before the militants in San Esteban Square. “He is the only one who says what he thinks, who touches on topics that no one wants to talk about,” Katiça Bartol, a 62-year-old retired teacher of Croatian origin, praises him among the attendees.
For a group of dozens of protesters cordoned off by the police a few meters from the rally this Friday, Kickl’s positions are unacceptable. “Nazis out,” accuses the sign held up by Morris M., 25 years old: “They are right-wing radicals and we must show rejection, not leave the stage free for them.” The FPÖ was founded in 1955, partly as the heir to a group founded after World War II by former Nazis. Kickl claims to condemn anti-Semitism and aligns himself with Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza, but he tends to treat complaints of xenophobic or anti-Jewish interventions with a cavalier attitude.
Remigration
The party’s star issue for decades is immigration and asylum, which it intends to reduce to zero. In his speeches he does not shy away from the term “remigration”, the idea of expelling foreigners who “do not comply with the rules of this country.”
Immigration is among the main concerns of Austrians, along with inflation and the cost of living, according to opinion studies. The country counted some 408,000 asylum requests between 2015 and 2023, with Syrians and Afghans as the main groups, and has welcomed 120,000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. With a population of nine million inhabitants (almost 20% foreigners), it is one of the most welcomed members of the EU in relation to its population.
Added to the problems of the integration of newcomers are news that create insecurity among Austrians, of sexual assaults, wars between foreign gangs or the attempted attack against Taylor Swift fans last August, before a concert in Vienna. which had to be cancelled. The detainees are of migrant origin, which the ultras have not missed.
Dagmar Auer, a 64-year-old retiree, believes that the other parties have left the field free for the FPÖ. “The immigration issue has not been managed correctly. [El resto de los partidos] They have not seriously addressed the problem because the criticism comes from the FPÖ. Nobody runs away for no reason, but then they spend a lot of time without permission to work, they have to live at the expense of the State, and that creates dissatisfaction, also among them,” says Auer in the center of Vienna.
The Christian Democrats are also committed to toughening immigration policy. The Social Democrats (21% on average in the surveys) and the Greens (8%), and in part, the Liberals of Neos (10%), have a greater impact on integration measures and access to the labor market. These three parties are candidates for possible coalitions if the conservatives do not finally agree with the FPÖ, with which they have also governed at the regional level. The 6.3 million voters will decide this Sunday who they give first place and the options to forge a coalition in a Parliament without majorities.
