SPÖ, ÖVP and FPÖ

Political Ash Wednesday: All speeches LIVE here

From the left: Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl and SPÖ leader Andreas Babler

(Bild: APA/Eggenberger, APA/Fesl, APA/Scheriau, Krone KREATIV,)

Three candidates, three places, one goal - the chancellor's seat. The Ash Wednesday speeches are the first test run in the election year. Kickl railed against the "Austro-Ampel" and Van der Bellen. 

Jörg Haider adopted the "custom" of political Ash Wednesday from Bavaria in 1992. The event has since developed into a political spectacle - four hours of election campaign rhetoric as a political carnival finale: Chancellor Karl Nehammer appeared in Klagenfurt. The FPÖ gathers its fans in Ried im Innkreis. Andreas Babler makes his Ash Wednesday debut in Kobenz, Styria.

Three candidates, three places, one goal - the chancellor's seat.

(Bild: APA/Eggenberger, APA/Fesl, APA/Scheriau, Krone KREATIV,)

Another first on this Ash Wednesday 2024 is the exhortation from Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen. A few hours before the start of the political carnival carnival, he appealed to the three leading politicians to "pause for a moment" and consider whether they were "hurting the people they are talking about".

Did Van der Bellen's lines have an effect? Kickl described Van der Bellen as a "neutrality ink killer". In 2018, during Russian President Putin's visit, VdB "was still proud of his Russian roots", Kickl recalled. "The president and memory are one thing," the FPÖ leader polemicized. SPÖ leader Babler described Kickl as a "fear monger". VdB's words did not have a long half-life.

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Kickl against VdB
The audience cheers. FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl enters to the sounds of the Wippenham band and great applause. The enthusiasm of the supporters is great, and Kickl fulfills what 2000 fans expect of him: despite Lent, there should be no "sparing of the government".

Kickl's targets were quickly identified: Nehammer and the "party unity mash" consisting of ÖVP, SPÖ, Greens and Neos.

The FPÖ leader described the ÖVP event in Wels as a "turquoise-black panic room where fear was palpable". Nehammer had "degraded himself to a supporting actor" in Wels because "Kickl was here, there and everywhere".

The election campaign would not be a duel between "him (Nehammer) and me", but rather about "the existence or non-existence of freedom, security and normality".

Alexander Van der Bellen also got his comeuppance. Kickl accused him of "hypocrisy". Because when the Federal President warns that people often "talk about other people", one wonders where VdB was when the "vaccinated were the good guys" and the "unvaccinated were the bad guys". Kickl described SPÖ leader Babler as having "burnt up without residue, without having glowed beforehand".

He concluded by telling his political opponents: "Buckle up you oppressors of the people".

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Nehammer in chancellor style
Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer has created the genre of the statesmanlike beer tent speech. He did not engage in the daily political hiccups. Even the duel against Herbert Kickl was not as omnipresent as in Wels. Nevertheless, the Chancellor did not miss out on a little jab at the blue party: "False promises will be exposed sooner or later!" He also appealed to all parties: "Not us against the others, but together for Austria." Much to the delight of around 1000 functionaries and party colleagues, who filled the exhibition hall with thunderous applause - at least when the Chancellor entered.

As expected, Nehammer picked up on the content of his Austria plan in his speech on stage: "If we do not initiate a turnaround in the EU's economic and migration policy, we will do away with ourselves in competition with other continents," warned the party leader. Specifically, he spoke out against "further regulating" the economy and rejected supply chain laws or the ban on combustion engines. The Chancellor also experienced moments of agreement on the topic of performance: "There is no prosperity without performance - so abolish all taxes on overtime and a 1000 euro bonus for full-time work!" He also devoted a few words to his own stance: "That also means speaking truths that are unpleasant!"

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Babler's premiere
After Hans Peter Doskozil's failure in the race for the red party chairmanship, the former SPÖ federal managing director announced that he no longer wanted to speak out on day-to-day politics and would not run for the National Council again. However, the strong-voiced Upper Styrian is far from silent: Max Lercher enters the stage in Kobenz in traditional garb - and the hearts of the 500 functionaries fly to the "host" in no time.

The banter is on fire, one thigh-slapper follows the next. The 37-year-old pokes fun at the other parties, above all the ÖVP and FPÖ. Amid laughter from his comrades, he points up the "inflation program of the blacks": a voucher booklet for cheap burgers. He castigates the Freedom Party for a trip to the Taliban.

"The ÖVP is the hamburger among the parties, they are the bourgeois: cheap, the way they do politics," rants the red leader Andreas Babler. The government is acting in a misanthropic manner, it doesn't care about inflation and is also fighting the unemployed. Now the ÖVP and FPÖ are planning "Orbanization". He describes Herbert Kickl as an insecure "fear monger".

He then makes a "promise for the future" for a government with the SPÖ: "We will rebuild our welfare state!" Fair wages are needed that do not "go to waste" on energy costs and rents.