Source: Associated Press
“Austrian far-right leader Herbert Kickl’s efforts to form a coalition government with a conservative party collapsed in mutual recriminations on Wednesday, more than four months after his party won a national election. Austria’s president last month gave Kickl a mandate to try to form a new government — the first to have been headed by the far right since World War II — after other parties’ efforts to put together a governing alliance without his Freedom Party failed. But Kickl on Wednesday informed President Alexander Van der Bellen that he was giving up the mandate. Weeks of tense talks with the conservative Austrian People’s Party appeared increasingly troubled in recent days.” (02/12/25)