Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has picked up where he left off, but this time with the Austrian Green Party. But how long the strange bedfellows can work together to stay in the Government is anybody’s guess as stakes are high for both, the People’s Party and the Green party

Sebastian Kurz, the youngest Chancellor of Austria at the age of 33, has just taken over as the Chancellor of the country for the second time. The People’s Party, known as Österreichische Volkspartei (OVP), he represents, is primarily a centre-right political party. However, it regards itself as a progressive centre party which is the successor of the Christian Social Party, established way back in the 1890s. In fact, the OVP came into being immediately after the reestablishment of the Republic of Austria in 1945.

Kurz became active in the politics of the OVP since the age of 16. As a law student in Vienna, he was elected to the post of the chairman of the youth wing of the party. By 2011, he left his studies to join as a junior Interior Minister and rose up to the rank of Foreign Minister in 2013, only at the age of 27. In 2015, when the whole Europe was plagued by massive immigration from war-torn nations of West Asia, he proposed a plan for immediate integration of these immigrant communities into the mainstream. But then he was all in praise for Hungary’s firebrand populist leader and Prime Minister Victor Orban. That was the time he was all against absorbing more immigrants from the troubled regions of West Asia and North Africa, such as Syria, Iraq, Libya, etc.

Also, Kurz credited Orban for closing the Balkan immigration route in 2016. It must be noted here that though the opposition in Hungary accuses him of backsliding when it comes to democratic freedoms, but he has remained undeterred in his shaping of a new polity what he likes to call as “illiberal democracy”. However the critics simply brand it as a semi-authoritarian state. With this kind of a liking, Kurz has fully endorsed a strong right turn in Austrian politics and of course change of tactics in coming elections.

Afterwards, he was elected chairman of the OVP in May 2017. Surprisingly he led the party to victory by garnering more than 31 per cent of the votes and became the Chancellor with the support from the far right FPO party from December 2017 to May 2019. His coalition government fell only when his coalition partner and its leader Heinz-Christian Strache were rocked by the historic Ibizagate scandal. Therefore, the party this time has dropped its former coalition partner, the FPO. The OVP was forced to stay away from this tie-up as the leader of the FPO, Strache, was caught offering bribe to a woman who posed as the niece of a Russian oligarch. And all these took place in Ibiza, one of the Balearic Islands of Spain located in the Mediterranean Sea. The Ibizagate trimmed down the voting share of the party to only 16 per cent, a sharp fall from 26 per cent in the last elections. The OVP has won 37 per cent of the votes, up from 31 per cent from the last election.

It is interesting to know the policies and programmes of the party as they are simply going to shape the future of Austria. The party is insisting on an immediate ban on the Identitarian Movement (also called as IBOe) once launched by the far-right. In fact, it came into light even before the general election in September. Further the OVP leader August Woeginger repeatedly reminded his party colleagues and the Austrian public that the ban on the Identitarian Movement would be a condition for making the next coalition Government of the country. The IBOe is famous for its anti-immigration agenda. But it has faced crisis as its leader Martin Sellner is accused of receiving money and exchanging e-mails with the suspected perpetrators of gun attacks on mosques in New Zealand, in which 51 people died.

Thus finally, the OVP has stitched an unlikely coalition with the Green Party, headed by Werner Kogler. Interestingly, the Greens achieved a historic win in this election by getting more than 13.9 per cent of the votes. But ironically, Kurz has been stressing for a proper centre-right coalition deal since the beginning of the snap poll that was held in September 2019. In that case, the FPO could have been the logical partner to deal with and form a government of their mutual interests. On the other hand, the FPO was seriously disturbed by internal differences. And the party also indicated in the recent past that it could very well go back and take the position of an opposition party.

Further, the old coalition i.e. OVP-SPO (Social Democratic Party) that survived the most parts of the post-World War II period seemed to be completely unviable today. This coalition is deeply unpopular among the Austrian electorate today, particularly among the youngsters. At the same time, Kurz, the new chairman of the party, has been criticising the new power-sharing system developed by both these parties as Proporz. Hence, there was no option left for Kurz, except aligning with the Greens.

For the first time in Austria, a female majority Government has come to power this month. And in the Cabinet of 17 Ministers in this Conservative-Green Government, 9 are women ministers. Kurz calls this coalition as the “best of both worlds”. But some say that it would be difficult for him to survive such an unusual tie-up. The reason behind is that how such a coalition of centre right and centre left would survive? It would be difficult for both the parties to further their own interests. There are high chances that their supporters and sympathisers would soon be disillusioned in the days to come. The ideological gap between the Greens and the OVP is too big. The OVP has a set agenda to cut taxes, deregulate, and reduce public expenditure whereas the Greens would like to go for new taxes on inheritance, carbon emissions and capital gains, want to engage in huge public infrastructure projects for building public transportation networks across the country. Again the Greens will find it really difficult to support Kurz on issues like tough stance on illegal immigration, slashing public funds for refugees and deporting asylum applicants upon receiving a negative notice even if they have jobs and successfully integrated with the Austrian society. Both the parties have strong differences over education and welfare reforms. His going with the Greens is a critical misreading of his long-term strategies. The ideological flexibility that he is displaying at the moment is simply overstated. He will simply pay for it in the near future. Many thought he is raising an illiberal democracy of Orban type in Hungary. But instead, it seems he is trying to cling to power even with the help of the Greens. His brand of politics may soon lose steam. And if cracks appear in the partnership, this will once again push Austria into a new uncertainty only.

Whatsoever it may be, people in Austria are just thinking ‘schau ma mal’ i.e. Let’s see. It is very apparent that it is a coalition that Kurz never wanted and many say that it is unlikely to last.

(The writer is an expert on international affairs)