THE leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FP) received a mandate today to form a new government.

If FP leader Herbert Kickl succeeds in putting together a coalition, it would be the first headed by the far right since World War II.

The anti-immigration and anti-European Union FP, which opposes sanctions against Russia, won a parliamentary election in September. 

It took 28.8 per cent of the vote, leaving outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party (PP) in second place.

But in October, President Alexander Van der Bellen gave Mr Nehammer the first chance to try to form a new government after the PP said it wouldn’t go into government with the FP under Mr Kickl and others also refused to work with his party. 

Those efforts to form a governing alliance without the far right collapsed over the weekend, leading Mr Nehammer to announce his intention to resign.

The PP then signalled that it might be open to working under Mr Kickl. 

Mr Van der Bellen said, after meeting Mr Kickl for about an hour at the presidential palace today, that he had tasked the FP leader with holding talks with the PP to form a new government.

“I did not take this step lightly,” the president told reporters. “I will continue to take care that the principles and rules of our constitution are correctly respected and adhered to.”

The far right and the conservatives have governed together before, but always with the FP as the junior partner. 

Most recently, they ran Austria from 2017 to 2019, with Mr Kickl serving as interior minister. That government collapsed over a scandal surrounding then FP leader Heinz-Christian Strache.

The president said that Mr Kickl was confident of finding “viable solutions” in coalition talks and that “and he wants this responsibility.”

Mr Kickl strode past reporters without commenting as he left his meeting with the president.