TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG "Editorial" issue from Saturday, March 18, 2023, by Alois Vahrner: "Black and red helpers for FPÖ boss Kickl"

Innsbruck (OTS) – ÖVP and SPÖ seem to do everything to further strengthen the FPÖ with its chairman Herbert Kickl. At least so far, no coalition partner seemed to be in sight, but that too has become increasingly shaky as of this week.

Once before, the FPÖ was in a survey high similar to that at the moment. During the refugee crisis of 2015/16, the Freedom Party, with a share of more than 30 percent, was far ahead of the then chancellor party SPÖ and its junior partner ÖVP. With Sebastian Kurz taking power, however, the blacks, who had been recolored in turquoise, jumped back to first place.
Kurz won the election, then came Ibiza and the turquoise-blue break, then a new election with the next short victory and turquoise-green, the corona pandemic and then the short end after various chat and other affairs. Mandatory vaccinations, Covid frustration, then the record price surge and energy crisis, along with a renewed increase in illegal migration: all of this pushed the government to a low in the polls. Despite the social problems, it was not the SPÖ that benefited, but the FPÖ, which relies on fundamental populism, whether with Corona, refugees, the Ukraine war or inflation. Chairman Herbert Kickl brings up the rear in the confidence index alongside ÖVP National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka and is only 20 percent on the Chancellor question, but the FPÖ recently exceeded the 30 percent mark in polls and is clearly first.
An indication that many are dissatisfied with the performance of the turquoise-green government and that the SPÖ is tearing itself apart in power struggles. The SPÖ is constantly calling for new elections, but given their current state, they should be happy if the VP and the Greens hold out. The showdown between Pamela Rendi-Wagner and Hans Peter Doskozil was probably inevitable, but for the time being it only helps Kickl additionally.
The Lower Austrian People’s Party is doing this even more sustainably. Although Lower Austria’s governor Johanna Mikl-Leiter and FPÖ leader Udo Landbauer fought violently during the election campaign, they are now forming a political marriage in the most important ÖVP state. Because allegedly some of the SPÖ’s demands would have been too expensive, the provincial blacks prefer to overlook the very right-wing list of various representatives of the blue provincial group (keyword song book affair and unacceptable statements and postings). Also forget blue demands for resignation to Mikl-Leitner. A coalition with a partner who does not vote for her in the state governor election is new. How the federal ÖVP wants to make it clear in the future that it does not want to enter into a coalition with Kickl or make him chancellor is questionable with regard to Lower Austria. The FPÖ or Kickl question will also overshadow everything in the SPÖ leadership duel and afterwards. Because apart from utopian traffic light dreams without the FPÖ, the SP still only has the ÖVP as the only option.