With the appointment of Karl Nehammer as a government member, Federal President Van der Bellen arbitrarily excluded the FPÖ from the democratic game. This caused a stir internationally – even tech billionaire Elon Musk criticized the Austrian president.
Federal Chancellor Alexander Van der Bellen did not entrust the government formation to the election winner Herbert Kickl, but to the second-placed ÖVP with Karl Nehammer as party leader. He justified this by saying, “There is simply no party that wants Herbert Kickl to be Federal Chancellor.”
In addition to Herbert Kickl, many Austrian personalities – including Marlene Svazek, the FPÖ leader in Salzburg, former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Hans Peter Doskozil, the leader of the SPÖ in Burgenland, Johanna Mikl-Leitner and Christopher Drexler, the ÖVP provincial governors of Lower Austria and Styria respectively – have already sharply criticized the move.
However, the decision also caused waves internationally.
Criticism of Van der Bellen
Swedish journalist Peter Imanuelsen, better known as “Peter Sweden,” wrote on X (formerly Twitter):
“The Austrian federal president broke with tradition and did not entrust the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) with forming the government despite their election victory. So the right-wing camp won the election, but cannot attempt to form a government.”
In response, tech billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized the process in clear words:
“The hypocrisy of the dictatorial left claiming to defend democracy while in fact opposing it!”
He criticized the process with unambiguous words in the post.
(Source: The article in Hungarian was originally published on November 30, 2024, at https://blikk.hu/aktualis/karacsony-gyorgy-miniszterelnokseg-akarmossag-orban-vikto/)
