Austrian far right shows strength with state election win in Styria
World
Austrian far right shows strength with state election win in Styria
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria's far-right Freedom Party won a state election in Styria for the first time on Sunday in an echo of September's general election and a new show of strength while national coalition talks continue without it.
Sunday's election in Styria, home to Austria's second city, Graz, raises pressure on party leaders currently attempting to forge the country's first three-way government since 1949.
It is only the second state which the eurosceptic, Russia-friendly Freedom Party (FPO) has ever won, the first having been Carinthia, the fiefdom of then-FPO leader Joerg Haider in his heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
"There's been a landslide in Styria. I didn't expect such a resounding result," the FPO's deputy leader in Styria, Stefan Hermann, told national broadcaster ORF.
It is the first time since World War Two that neither the OVP nor the Social Democrats (SPO) have won in the state bordering Slovenia where actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was born.
The FPO will need a coalition partner to secure a majority in Styria's state assembly and form a government.
Nationally, FPO leader Herbert Kickl continues to lambast efforts to form what he calls a "coalition of losers" by the parties that came second, third and fourth in September's election. He argues that since the FPO came first he should have been tasked with forming a government.
The FPO secured 29% of the vote in September's election, meaning it needed a coalition partner to govern.
Alexander Van der Bellen, an 80-year-old former leader of the left-wing Greens, said last month that since no other party was prepared to govern with the FPO under Kickl, he had to task Chancellor Karl Nehammer of the OVP as leader of the second-placed party with forming a government.
