Who will govern?

After the election: It won’t work with or without Kickl

The coming weeks depend on just one person: Herbert Kickl.

(Bild: AP)

A reasonably fair and objective election campaign is coming to an end. The leading candidates have had very different journeys: at least one of them was only disturbed by his own party, one had a run, one will help decide the future government.

What is the most important discipline in an election campaign? The avoidance of mistakes. The campaign teams of all the top candidates are working around the clock to ensure that their wife, whose husband didn't say anything wrong, didn't do anything embarrassing and didn't grin stupidly like the German CDU top candidate Armin Laschet once did during the flood. In this election campaign, all the top candidates and their staff managed to pull this off right to the end. Nobody stumbled, nobody laughed in the wrong way, nobody said things for which they had to apologize again. The biggest mishap happened in the SPÖ ...

Andreas Babler, who was campaigning in Duracell bunny mode, was only partially to blame: Doris Bures had sent an email to the members of the SPÖ party presidium expressing her displeasure with Babler's election program and course. The digital letter was promptly sent to the "Krone" and thus to the public (see facsimile below).

Babler then apologized profusely live on ORF. Not for the program, but for the image that the SPÖ presented. The internal dispute continues to smoulder. Burgenland's Hans-Peter Doskozil and former party leader Christian Kern are also involved on the sidelines.

Doris Bures' digital letter was promptly sent to the "Krone" and thus made public, Andreas Babler then apologized profusely live on ORF.

(Bild: zVg/Screenshot)

Chancellor in a duel with Herbert Kickl
Karl Nehammer does not know such problems, the party is united behind him. The SPÖ problems and his chancellor bonus in crisis management during the flood disaster took Nehammer from the battle for second place to a duel with Herbert Kickl for the top spot. This means that Kickl is in danger of losing a firmly predicted election victory in the last few meters. But the polls are more than close. Nervousness has recently increased in the victory-secure Freedom Party camp and the tone has become much harsher again. Even before the flood disaster, the tone in this election campaign was unusually matter-of-fact.

Everyone adhered to the second most important principle in an election campaign: not to break the china. After the previous election campaign, a coalition between Sebastian Kurz and Christian Kern would have been unthinkable. On the other hand, the ÖVP and FPÖ proved after dirty state election campaigns how painless politics can be.

Who with whom?
Nehammer and Kickl were almost polite with each other in their TV duel. A few days earlier, it had been completely different. It seemed almost unimaginable that Nehammer and Babler could or would have to form a joint government after such an aggressive confrontation. But that is exactly what is likely to happen.

Chancellor Nehammer and Vice-Chancellor Babler might only need a majority procurer in the form of the NEOS. They have courted government participation like no other opposition party before. The Greens seem to have resigned themselves to their fate on the opposition bench.

And the FPÖ? Not really. Parts of the leadership, functionaries and their voters want the party in government. This could work if the FPÖ does not come first. The ÖVP, suddenly victorious despite percentage losses, could end up back with the FPÖ due to irreconcilable differences in content with the SPÖ.

Their program was intentionally written as a rapprochement with the ÖVP. This Sunday and the coming weeks are therefore up to Herbert Kickl. Will he win, will he remain in second place as party leader and potential member of government or will he leave the party and possible FPÖ government team in his hands? To put it briefly: It won't work with Kickl. It won't work without Kickl.