AUSTRIA: Coalition Talks To Start w/OVP Left To Choose Rightward Swing Or GroKo

After the 29 Sep election, parties will begin process of forming a majority governing coalition. The strong result for the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), coming in top spot for the first time ever, gives it the clearest path to forming a coalition. However, the most important actor will be the centre-right People's Party (ÖVP), which came in second place. Either the ÖVP agrees to sit in an FPÖ-led coalition as the junior partner, or goes with the third-placed centre-left Social Democrats (SPÖ).

• As Austria analyst Marcus How notes, "For opponents of the FPÖ, the silver lining of the results is precisely that the ÖVP failed to pip the FPÖ for first place. The ÖVP cannot credibly demand that [FPO leader] Herbert Kickl relinquish his claim to the chancellery, which the party wishes to retain for itself. [...] Thus, the prospect of the ÖVP forming a grand coalition [GroKo] with the Social Democrats (SPÖ) is becoming more attractive."
• President Alexander van der Bellen, hailing from the centre-left Greens, is a staunch opponent of the FPÖ. He urged other parties to protect “the pillars of our liberal democracy” in a veiled hint to encourage moderate parties to seek an agreement. As The Guardian reports, "However, Vedran Džihić, a senior researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, called such a move “fraught with great risk”. “This would bolster the (FPÖ) rhetoric around ‘parties of the system’ and ‘coalition of losers’, again picking up dissatisfied voters and setting it on a course for growth,”