It wasn’t that long ago that the FPÖ was lurching from one crash to the next. Until Herbert Kickl’s radicalized course, especially with Corona, led the Blues to the top. And now?
It would be a complete understatement to describe the state of the FPÖ after the end of the turquoise-blue coalition as a “crisis”. After the Ibiza implosion and the expulsion from the government, her ex-boss found herself in a serious expenses scandal, photos of bundles of cash in sports bags and the like were circulating. After weeks of argument, Heinz-Christian Strache split off from the Freedom Party with a new party – and for the Blues it was one defeat after another: minus ten percentage points in the 2019 National Council election, minus ten in Vorarlberg the same year, and the same in Styria . In the state elections in Burgenland in 2020, the FPÖ fell into single digits, just as in Vienna. In the federal capital they lost a historic 24 percentage points. At the beginning of 2020, the FPÖ was hovering around ten percent in nationwide surveys.
In this malaise, an internal power struggle raged. Herbert Kickl emerged victorious from this in 2021 – and took a radicalized course, especially when it came to Corona. Kickl put himself and his party at the forefront of the protests of those opposing the Corona measures and campaigned from the fundamental opposition against an unspecified “system” supported by alleged “unity parties”.
Asyl, Corona, Korruption
The thematic backdrop for this campaign was picturesque: After the poll scandal, Sebastian Kurz, the former Blue voter who had moved to the ÖVP, resigned – and the corruption allegations against the ÖVP subsequently overshadowed those against the Blues. The Chancellor changed several times, the government’s popularity ratings plummeted, and the Corona protest reached its climax with the mandatory vaccination debate around the turn of the year 2022. The Blues opened up new target groups with the Corona protest – and have been able to retain them so far.
Meanwhile, records were reached in the number of asylum applications and the war in Ukraine began a massive inflation crisis. Kickl has repeatedly stated in these months that he intends to do “the exact opposite” of what he believes the “aligned” politicians of the other parties are doing, from an end to the Russia sanctions to a rigorous migration policy. For a long time, the big Corona revenge occurred at almost every appearance, right down to the “wanted lists” that he kept in this regard.
With the Kickl course, the blue decline was stopped, and the FPÖ even achieved record results in state elections from 2022 onwards. The current peak was reached in June 2024, when the FPÖ won a nationwide election in the EU elections for the first time in its history. Before the National Council election on Sunday, pollsters also saw the Blues ahead, although only just ahead of the ÖVP, who had recently caught up. It would be the first time that the FPÖ won a National Council election – just one term of government after the Ibiza crash.
