Who is Who – Herbert Kickl: Election winner in Austria, opponent of Kosovo's independence

The leader of Austria's Freedom Party (FPO), which advocates for Serbia's membership in the EU and opposes Kosovo's independence, Herbert Kickl achieved a historic result in Austria's parliamentary elections, which could fulfill his dream of becoming the "people's chancellor," a slogan from his election campaign.

For the first time in Austria's post-war history, his party won the parliamentary elections and is in a position to form a government. However, this will not be simple, as Kickl is not an attractive coalition partner due to his flirtation with the far-right.

In June, the Vienna FPO committee submitted a request to the Vienna Assembly stating that "Kosovo is not an independent state," and that its recognition violated Serbia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as UN Resolution 1244. Therefore, they believe that the Austrian government should not have recognized Kosovo's independence.

Kickl himself said in an interview with a Serbian media outlet two years ago that Kosovo resembles a "failed" rather than a sovereign state, where an international military mission is still deployed to maintain security and prevent violence. At the same time, he emphasized that Serbia is an important European country with a rich history, always connected to Austria's fate, and remains an important part of the European community of nations and a stabilizing factor in the Balkans.

However, the election campaigns of all other participants in the Austrian parliamentary elections were directed against Kickl, accusing him of being a far-right extremist who flirts with the past.

Kickl's path to the leadership of the FPO was paved by the "Ibiza" scandal, which led to the resignation of the much better-known and charismatic FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache.

Kickl was once a speechwriter for Jörg Haider, a former FPO leader under whom the party achieved significant results. In one of the speeches Kickl wrote, Haider referred to French President Jacques Chirac as a "pocket Napoleon," leading to a cooling of bilateral relations between the two countries.

In the government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, where the Freedom Party also had members, Kickl served as Minister of the Interior, frequently criticized for his hardline stance on immigrants. Due to this stance and his refusal to distance himself from the radical far-right, Kickl has become an undesirable coalition partner for all other parties. Thus, the leader of the Austrian People's Party and current Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said he cannot imagine Herbert Kickl as chancellor, although he could envision cooperating with the Freedom Party.

Kickl built his political strength primarily during the coronavirus pandemic as a vocal critic of vaccinations and all anti-COVID measures. The war in Ukraine further boosted his popularity, as has been the case with the far-right in other European countries. Kickl opposed the official Vienna policy of taking sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and blindly following the EU's sanctions policy, arguing that Austria is abandoning its neutrality. Kickl and his party oppose the sanctions imposed on Moscow, though he distanced himself from the cooperation agreement his predecessor signed with Putin's United Russia Party after becoming the party's leader.

The victory in the parliamentary elections should not come as a surprise, as it followed the FPO's victory in the European Parliament elections in Austria, which gave Kickl additional momentum.

He signed the "Patriotic Manifesto" with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and ANO party leader and former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, laying the foundation for the formation of the "Patriots for Europe" faction in the European Parliament, which is expected to include other right-wing parties.

For Kickl, this was, as he said, a historic day, a day of entering a new era of European politics.

"An era of freedom, sovereignty, peace, prosperity, and European values," Kickl said. However, he will need considerable political skill and a willingness to compromise to find a coalition partner and achieve another historic result—becoming Austria's new chancellor.

Kickl grew up in a working-class family and attended elementary school in Radenthein, followed by high school in Spittal an der Drau.

After voluntarily serving in the military, he initially studied journalism and political science at the University of Vienna, and later philosophy and history.