2024-02-10 07:16:56
Hans Peter Doskozil harshly criticizes his party and its “backroom” politics. He considers the fact that many comrades are calling for a coalition with the ÖVP to be a “huge mistake”. And: He doesn’t rule out the FPÖ as a partner per se.
The press: Mr. Doskozil, how often do you think regarding June 5, 2023?
Hans Peter Doskozil: What happened on June 5th?
The Monday following the SPÖ party conference, on which the result…
…yes, I know, thank you. As a politician you have to be a professional to the point where you can ignore something like that. And there are enough tasks in Burgenland, we are working on further improving care and the question of how to organize hospitals in the best possible way, on the minimum wage, which I would still like to see applied to the whole of Austria. So there are moments when I think regarding how all of these things might be regulated even better at the federal level.
How often do you have the moments?
The FPÖ is consistently ahead in all surveys, and so far nothing has come of Andreas Babler’s announcement that he would attract blue voters to the SPÖ on a large scale. Do you think things would be different if you were at the head of the party?
I don’t even want to judge that. Rather, we need to address the question of how social democracy should develop further. We are still stuck in these old structures of social partnership and with some overpowering state organizations that in the back rooms pay little attention to the needs of other state organizations. These structures prevent a lot. No matter who is in front.
They don’t seem very surprised that the SPÖ is behind the FPÖ in polls.
People have not recognized the signs of the times that too much has been promised over the years. How many elections have we been defeated by arguing that housing needs to be cheaper? That you have to be able to live better with what you earn? Nothing happened. In return, we say that people should get a discount here and there, so to speak as a charity party. Anyone who works 40 hours must be equipped so that all of these services are not necessary. That should be the claim of social democracy, but we have lost it. If today a top union official with a mandate on the National Council has a gross monthly salary of 2,500 euros more as a result of the last two wage increases, but a minimum income earner has less than 300 euros more, then something is wrong.
Is that why Kickl is ahead?
I assume that we will see an election in which the Freedom Party comes first. This is certainly due to the fact that the established parties are so weak. What has Kickl already achieved so far? He talked a lot regarding horses, but didn’t make any progress on the migration issue.
Can you rule with him?
It would be difficult to deny the ability of a party that gets perhaps 30 percent of the vote to be democratic. You cannot say to all FPÖ voters that they voted wrongly just because they are dissatisfied with the established politics. Although Kickl of course makes it difficult for everyone to enter into a coalition with him. We have a catalog of values for possible coalition partners in which we do not exclude the FPÖ per se. This should be used.
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