Vienna, Feb 27: Three parties announced Thursday that they have reached a deal to form a new centrist Austrian government, five months after an election was won by a far-right party that later failed in an attempt to form an administration.
A statement from the conservative Austrian People’s Party, the centre-left Social Democrats and the liberal Neos said they agreed on a programme for a coalition after the longest post-election hiatus in post-World War II Austria.
The country’s politicians broke a record of 129 days to form a new government that dated back to 1962.
New People’s Party leader Christian Stocker is expected to become chancellor. The parties planned to present their programme later Thursday.
This was the second attempt by the three mainstream parties to form a new government without the far-right, anti-immigration and eurosceptic Freedom Party, which in Austria’s September 29 election emerged for the first time as the strongest political force.
Their first effort collapsed in early January, prompting the resignation of conservative then-Chancellor Karl Nehammer — and setting the scene for Austria’s president to ask Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl to try to form a government.
Kickl’s own attempt to put together a coalition with the People’s Party, which finished second in the election, collapsed in mutual recriminations on February 12. The mainstream parties, which faced the risk of a new election that was unlikely to do them any favours, resumed their effort to find common ground. (AP)
