Tiroler Tageszeitung, editorial, edition of August 26, 2023. By PETER NINDLER. "Summer 2023: In Kickl's Headlock".

2023-08-25 20:01:06

Innsbruck (OTS) – FPÖ leader Herbt Kickl drives domestic politics and especially the chancellor party ÖVP ahead of him with well-calculated political outrage at him. In this condition, Kickl can make cheap change for the Liberals.

What’s left of this summer? FPÖ Federal Party Chairman Herbert Kickl! Apparently he did everything right. What a dictum in Tyrol. After all, the Austrian politicians, especially those of the People’s Party, like to carry their feelings about Kickl like a vendor’s tray. And we keep falling for him again and again. Because the blue front man makes politics for the FPÖ and himself with the indignation of the political competitors.
Nobody will seriously deny that the blue chief did not knowingly denounce the “Stasi interrogation room” in the ORF summer talks in order to get one over on the state broadcaster. The ORF is already down with its supporters, but the justified indignation at its unacceptable comparison with the notorious state security in the former GDR is part of Kickl’s strategy for success.
This explains the general problem in dealing with the Freedom Party: Necessary criticism of the linguistic brutalization is lost in the endless loop of constant employment politics with Kickl’s FPÖ. Sometimes ignoring would be more effective than emulating.
However: The ÖVP, as the chancellor and governor’s party, wants to politically defy the Blues with the demand for “cash in the constitution” instead of seriously dealing with why the Austrians have too little cash in their purses. With an inflation rate of seven percent, inflation is among the highest compared to other euro zone countries. The Normalo diplomacy promoted by the People’s Party should also dig the water out of the FPÖ. In view of rising loan interest rates and comparatively low interest rates on savings, many borrowers are wondering whether this is still normal. Now a bank summit is to do the trick, the real winner has already been determined beforehand: Herbert Kickl.
The summer exchange of blows is not about solutions, but about who is stealing the ideas from whom. About copying and not factual politics. As a member of the opposition, Kickl limits himself to what he does best: issuing the government and especially the ÖVP poor reports every week and driving them along. As with the special session in Parliament on inflation, which he agreed with the SPÖ chairman Andreas Babler. Whereby Kickl uses that more than Babler.
However, the Liberals are only so strong because the black-green government is failing on key issues: inflation, climate protection, energy transition, rents or migration. Black and green would have to deal with that. Not with Kickl, because that puts them in his headlock and only strengthens him even more.