Far right-led efforts to form Austria govt drag on
Tuesday, February 04, 2025       21:09 WIB

Vienna, Feb 4, 2025 (AFP)
Negotiations on forming Austria's government are set to drag on for a record period of time as thousands of people are expected to protest on Tuesday against the far right taking power.
While the Freedom Party (FPOe) -- which in September sensationally topped national polls for the first time ever -- has been in government before, it has never led the Alpine nation of nine million people.
It has been negotiating since last month with the long-ruling conservative People's Party (OeVP), which came second in September's polls.
Those efforts came after the OeVP failed in earlier attempts to form a government without the FPOe.
The previous record negotiation period to form a government was 129 days in the 1960s.
That mark will tumble on Wednesday, with analysts still seeing a FPOe-led government in the EU member nation as the most likely outcome.
"There are differences, especially in their standpoints on the EU... However, the negotiations are unlikely to fail because of this," political analyst Johannes Huber told AFP.
He added that the conservatives in recent years had demanded a "refocusing of the EU on economic issues", which is "not far" from the EU-critical FPOe's own demands.
Other sticking points include FPOe plans to slash the fees that Austrians pay to public broadcaster ORF.
FPOe leader Herbert Kickl, in a Facebook post on Sunday, said that he continues to have "trust" in the conservatives.
Civil society groups have called for a large demonstration against the far right in front of the chancellory later on Tuesday.
A previous protest last month gathered tens of thousands of people across Austria.
But analysts say protests are not expected to derail the negotiations.
Austria has had a strong far-right political presence since the 1980s.
In 2000, the FPOe under Joerg Haider entered into a coalition government, a first in the European Union, triggering protests that drew up to 250,000 people.
The FPOe -- led by the radical Kickl since 2021 -- won almost 29 percent of the vote in September as anger and fears over inflation, migration, the war in Ukraine and the handling of the corona virus pandemic weighed heavily on the vote.
The FPOe currently leads one regional government in Austria and is part of regional governments in four other provinces.

Sumber : AFP