Far-right party wins Austrian general election – but may struggle to form government

Published

10 months ago

September 30, 2024

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The far-right Freedom Party has won the general election in Austria.

Led by Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister who was dismissed over the country’s Ibiza scandal, the party finished first ahead of the ruling conservatives, with the centre-left Social Democrats in third place.

However, despite this, the party’s chances of actually governing remain unclear.

Preliminary official results showed the Freedom Party finishing with 29.2% of the vote, Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party second with 26.5% and the Social Democrats with 21%, according to a near-complete count reported by national public broadcaster ORF.

The outgoing government, a coalition of Mr Nehammer’s party and the Greens, lost its majority in the lower house of parliament.

Mr Kickl has said he wants to be chancellor, but to become Austria’s new leader he would need a coalition partner and rivals have said they will not work with him in government.

He has also drawn criticism for his use of the term “Volkskanzler,” or chancellor of the people, which was used by the Nazis to describe Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.

Mr Kickl has rejected the comparison.

The party has tapped into anxieties around immigration, inflation, COVID, and the war in Ukraine and its strong performance follows recent gains for the far right elsewhere in Europe.

In its election programme, called Fortress Austria, the Freedom Party called for the “remigration of uninvited foreigners” to achieve a more “homogenous” nation.

The party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine, and wants to leave the European Sky Shield Initiative – a missile defence project launched by Germany.

In his closing campaign speech on Saturday, Mr Kickl claimed sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine were hurting Austria even more than Russia.

Speaking separately alongside other party leaders on ORF, he said: “We don’t need to change our position, because we have always said that we’re ready to lead a government, we’re ready to push forward this change in Austria side by side with the people.”

Mr Nehammer described Mr Kickl as a “security risk” for the country.

Along with other political leaders, he has said he would not form a coalition with Mr Kickl.

If the Freedom Party is unable to form a government, an alternative could be an alliance between the People’s Party and the Social Democrats – with or without the liberal Neos, who took 9% of the vote.

Who is Herbert Kickl?

After the Ibiza affair in 2019, 55-year-old Herbert Kickl became leader of the FPO in 2021.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Kickl attended anti-lockdown protests and called Israel’s mass vaccination campaign “health apartheid”.

He also refused to condemn those who likened lockdown measures to the Holocaust, despite Austria’s strict laws against antisemitism.

He rubbished claims that those making the comparison were trivialising the Nazi regime during an interview with Austrian news outlet ORF.

And in March last year, he and other FPO members left the Austrian parliament when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the chamber.

The far-right victory in Austria comes after similar successes elsewhere in Europe.

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose party dominates the Netherlands’ new government, congratulated the Freedom Party on social media.

As did co-leader of the Alternative for Germany Party (AfD), Alice Weidel, whose party won recent state elections for the first time.

World

Israel silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza

Published

3 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza

The targeted killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif and four other colleagues by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) late on Sunday silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza.

The IDF wasted no time in releasing a statement claiming it had “eliminated” Al-Sharif, calling him a “terrorist” who “posed” as a journalist for Al Jazeera.

Gaza latest: Follow live updates

The Committee to Protect Journalists warned in July that Al-Sharif was the victim of an Israeli smear campaign and that they feared for his safety.

The IDF had previously released documents which they say proved his involvement with Hamas.

No word from them on his colleagues – Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa – who they also killed. We are chasing.

Al-Sharif’s death – and that of his four colleagues – is a chilling message to the journalistic community both on the ground and elsewhere ahead of Israel’s impending push into Gaza City.

There will now be fewer journalists left to cover that story, and – if it is even possible – they will be that bit more fearful.

This is how journalists are silenced. Israel knows this full well.

It has also not allowed international journalists independent access to enter Gaza to report on the war.

Al-Sharif’s death has sent shockwaves across the region, where he was a household name. He was prolific on social media and had a huge following.

I was watching horrifying footage of the immediate aftermath of the strike in the taxi on my way into the bureau, and the driver told me how he and his family had all cried for Anas when the news came in.

His little daughter cried because of Al-Sharif’s little daughter, Sham, who she knew from social media.

“They call everyone Hamas,” my taxi driver said. “Men, women, children”.

Last month, Al-Sharif wrote this post: “I haven’t stopped covering [the crisis] for a moment in 21 months, and today I say it outright… and with indescribable pain.

“I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment… Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”

This is what journalists in Gaza are facing, every single day.

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

9 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

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Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

15 hours ago

August 10, 2025