At the federal level, ÖVP leader Christian Stocker has demanded from the Freedom Party and Herbert Kickl to move "from the right fringe to the center." However, Kickl did not consider it, so no government cooperation between the two came about. Although: Did Stocker really mean it seriously?
It is doubtful. This is supported by the fact that Kickl's anti-EU stance in times like these is not something the ÖVP can simply overlook. At its core, it is still a pro-European party, and now more than ever, a strong EU is crucial. Especially in security policy matters.
On the other hand, the ÖVP itself is by no means positioned in the center everywhere. On the contrary, in Vienna, it positions itself clearly to the right in view of the municipal council elections. So much so that one can say it is skirting the fringe.
The federal capital is referred to by them as a "knife metropolis" that is about to tip over. "No-Go for No-Go-Areas" is what they want to poster according to a "Standard" article. And: "German is mandatory, Habibi." It is described as an unusual election campaign for the Vienna People's Party, according to state manager Peter Sverak.
The opposite is true: It exactly matches the course of their chairman Karl Mahrer, who already tried to attract attention two years ago with messages about the Brunnenmarkt. He claimed it was developing into a symbol of failed integration and spoke of an "insecurity zone."
In this respect, the current election campaign of the ÖVP is not unusual: It consistently continues what it has been trying for some time. Namely, to copy the Freedom Party. Here, it has given up its identity as a bourgeois, urban, and thus also cosmopolitan party. It does not address integration problems, which do exist, in a sober manner to offer solutions, but rather engages in scaremongering. Keyword "knife metropolis."
In doing so, it abolishes itself: This is the business of the FPÖ, where Herbert Kickl at the federal level and Dominik Nepp at the municipal level are the leaders and therefore sweep up in elections. They form the original, and the support for a copy, as Karl Mahrer and his people want to be, is limited.
See poll numbers: The Freedom Party could triple its share of votes in the municipal council election at the end of April to over 20 percent, while the Black-Turquoise must fear that their share of votes will halve towards ten percent. A miracle? No. One can rather only wonder that Mahrer and Co. do not see what they are risking; and that they do not react, albeit not too late, and move "to the center," freely following Christian Stocker.
Johannes Huber runs the blog dieSubstanz.at – Analyses and Backgrounds on Politics
This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.