VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria’s president will ask the outgoing conservative-led cabinet on Wednesday to stay on in a caretaker capacity while parties try to form a new government after the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) won Sunday’s election.
The FPO made history by winning a parliamentary election for the first time since it was founded in the 1950s under a leader who had been an SS officer and Nazi lawmaker.
Having secured around 29% of the vote, the Russia-friendly, Eurosceptic FPO would need a coalition partner to govern but the other parties’ leaders have said they are not interested.
President Alexander Van der Bellen, a former leader of Austria’s Greens, is due to accept the government’s resignation around 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) and ask it to stay on in a caretaker capacity until a ruling coalition is formed.
This time those talks could last even longer than the two or three months Austrians are used to.
Van der Bellen is also due to give a short speech.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP) is the only party to have left the door open to a coalition with the FPO.
But Nehammer has repeatedly ruled out going into government with FPO leader Herbert Kickl and did so again after the election.
The FPO said it hoped Nehammer would be ousted as OVP leader to clear the way for a coalition, but the OVP’s leadership reaffirmed its support for the chancellor on Tuesday.
Although the FPO currently appears to have no path to power, Nehammer urged the president on Tuesday to formally task the FPO with forming a coalition.
The FPO, which was part of government as recently as 2019, has sought to depict itself as an anti-establishment outsider taking on a system controlled by the other parties.
Giving it the first chance to pursue coalition talks would help counter FPO arguments that it is being shut out.
(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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