VIENNA — The leader of Austria’s Freedom Party received a mandate Monday to try to form a new government, which would be the first headed by the far right since World War II if he succeeds.

The anti-immigration and euroskeptic Freedom Party, which opposes sanctions against Russia and is led by Herbert Kickl, won Austria’s parliamentary election in September. It took 28.8% of the vote and beat outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party into second place.

But in October, President Alexander Van der Bellen gave Nehammer the first chance to form a new government after Nehammer’s party said it wouldn’t go into government with the Freedom Party under Kickl and others refused to work with the Freedom Party at all. Those efforts to form a governing alliance without the far right collapsed in the first few days of the new year and Nehammer said Saturday that he would resign.

People’s Party Signaled That They May Work Under Kickl

The People’s Party then signaled that it might be open to working under Kickl. Van der Bellen said after meeting Kickl for about an hour at the presidential palace Monday that he had tasked the Freedom Party leader with holding talks with the People’s Party to form a new government.

“I did not take this step lightly,” the president told reporters. “I will continue to take care that the principles and rules of our constitution are correctly respected and adhered to.”

The far right and the conservatives have governed together before, but on previous occasions with the Freedom Party as the junior partner. Most recently, they ran Austria from 2017 to 2019 in a government in which Kickl — a 56-year-old with a taste for provocation — served as interior minister. It collapsed in a scandal surrounding the Freedom Party’s leader at the time.

Coalition talks between the far right and conservatives aren’t guaranteed to succeed, but there are no longer any other realistic options in the current parliament and polls suggest that a new election soon could strengthen the Freedom Party further.

In its election program titled “Fortress Austria,” the Freedom Party has called for the “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” for achieving a more “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum via an emergency law.

The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to bow out of the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. Kickl has criticized “elites” in Brussels and called for some powers to be brought back from the European Union to Austria.

Freedom Party Is Part of the Right-Wing

The Freedom Party is part of a right-wing populist alliance in the European Parliament, Patriots for Europe, which also includes the parties of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and of the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, whose party dominates the Netherlands’ new government,

Van der Bellen noted that the new government won’t face an easy task.

“The economic environment is difficult. Austria is in a persistent recession, unemployment is rising; at the same time our state budget must be restructured,” he said. “It’s not likely that all the measures will be popular, but they will have to be implemented.”

He also pointed to the geopolitical threats Austria faces, particularly as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and pointed to the importance of “constructively strengthening European cooperation in the Union, also in the interest of Austrian industry and exporters.”

And the head of state, a liberal who originally hails from the environmentalist Greens, said that he and Kickl had discussed media freedom in Austria at length.

Kickl is confident of finding “viable solutions” in coalition talks, “and he wants this responsibility,” the president said.

Kickl strode past reporters without commenting as he left the meeting.

Around 200-300 demonstrators gathered outside the presidential palace as he spoke with Van der Bellen.

“We don’t want to wake in a fascist country. We also don’t want to wake up in an authoritarian system like in Hungary,” protester Martin Fuchs said. “We want to maintain democracy in Austria and strengthen it.”