Gernot Darmann

After the election: “FPÖ Carinthia has clearly delivered”

A broad grin on the face of FP Carinthia leader Erwin Angerer.

(Bild: Jennifer Kapellari)

The Carinthian Freedom Party was particularly pleased to appear before the media on Tuesday after its provincial party committee. In addition to the topics for the upcoming provincial parliamentary session on Thursday, the main focus today was on analyzing the successful result of the National Council elections.

"The sky is blue, the sun is shining," said FP leader Erwin Angerer happily - no wonder, as the Carinthian FPÖ achieved the strongest national result for the Freedom Party in Austria. After the historic result, which follows on from the successes of Jörg Haider, the Carinthian FPÖ is nevertheless modest. They want to treat the trust of the voters with care and are not making any demands regarding positions in a possible FPÖ government. "We have done a good job here, in Vienna the government has done a very poor job," says Erwin Angerer, analyzing the election result.

Exclusion of the FPÖ is "negligent"
Clear criticism is also voiced of the other parties, which had already ruled out a coalition with FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl (and in some cases with the entire FPÖ) before the election: "I think it is negligent to exclude 1.4 million voters from the outset," says Angerer. Kickl had stretched out his hand and people had turned away.

According to the FPÖ, Carinthia cannot go back to business as usual either: "The people here are also dissatisfied with the performance of the ÖVP and SPÖ," Angerer is certain. Top candidate Gernot Darmann, who incidentally won a preferential vote in his constituency (14% of the total party vote in the constituency), is now heading to Vienna: "I will miss working in the state parliament, but political work is just around the corner!" Incidentally, his successor will be Joseph Krammer from Maria Saale, but it has not yet been decided who will be the deputy chairman of the party. Darmann also warns against the kind of "traffic light coalition" that exists in Germany: "There will be no good future with this!" The Klagenfurt resident speaks of a "staircase joke of history" when it comes to Herbert Kickl's withdrawal in order to possibly still be able to form a coalition with the ÖVP. Incidentally, no invitations have yet been extended to Carinthian functionaries to take a seat at Kickl's side at a possible negotiating table: "If it is desired, then of course we will send someone. More details will certainly be discussed at tomorrow's meeting," said Angerer.

Demands in the state parliament
Afterwards, Angerer and Darmann also presented two urgent motions that they will introduce in the state parliament session: One calls for a 20 percent reduction in the state levy paid by municipalities to the state: "Otherwise, numerous municipalities will slide into insolvency," said Angerer, who is also a mayor himself. The second will be classically about stopping migration and justice for Carinthian citizens.