Parties in crisis

Childish Greens and the FPÖ as ghost drivers

Red, green, black, pink and blue: they are all preoccupied with themselves.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com, Krone KREATIV)

Red, green, black, pink and blue: all parliamentary parties are struggling with their internal problems as Austria slides deeper and deeper into crisis.

A lemming is a kind of vole that supposedly wanders up to a cliff with its companions in order to plunge off it together to its doom. According to the motto: today we are standing on the edge of the abyss, tomorrow we will be one step further. This is reminiscent of the state of Austrian politics.

The Neos have pulled out of the government negotiations. That is the right of a party. However, it is unclear why this took place after all-night meetings as an obvious surprise to the ÖVP and SPÖ. As a result, any last-minute attempt to reach an agreement - even if it was an ultimatum for black and red negotiators - was made impossible from the outset.

The crux of all coalition talks is the budget crisis. Austria is on the brink of national bankruptcy if painful austerity programs are not implemented. How can the ÖVP and its leader Karl Nehammer pretend that his party is not a central (co-)cause of the gigantic deficit? After all, they have been the chancellor's party since 2017 and have been in the federal government almost constantly since 1987. From 2007 onwards, by the way, it was practically always the finance minister.

The SPÖ's left-wing course under Andreas Babler brought in barely more than a fifth of the votes. The worst election result in the history of social democracy. Internally, the party is still divided into several camps. Where do you get the belief that this will improve when all you have to offer so far in terms of forming a government are familiar platitudes?

You know the story about the traffic report that a wrong-way driver is coming towards you? A driver hearing this on the radio shouts indignantly: "What do you mean one? All of them!" He is not prepared to question his own driving behavior. For years, the FPÖ has been insulting everyone and everything that is not up to scratch. If - unlike with Mario Kunasek or Manfred Haimbuchner in Styria or Upper Austria - nobody wants to form a coalition with Herbert Kickl, the blue federal party leader will have to ask himself at some point whether he is not doing something wrong himself.

Despite dramatic election defeats,the Greens believe they have done everything right just because the others are messing up when it comes to forming a government. That's as childish as a boy covered in mud after a tussle constantly justifying himself: "You should see the other guy!"

There is hope, by the way. The lemmings don't actually plunge to their deaths collectively. The scene in question was merely invented for a movie by Walt Disney. A myth, in other words. Fake news, so to speak. Which, of course, does nothing to change the fact that Austrian politicians and parties are stumbling around disoriented.