Multi-award winning political analyst Andreas Unterberger issues a clear warning: “If the ÖVP does not act in the next few days, it has virtually lost everything.” The reason for the appeal of the experienced journalist is the recent events surrounding the SPO-Union Party conference. Party leader Andreas Bübler, who was elected “correctly” for the first time, represents a “substantial return to the class struggle of the twenties – the last century”, writes Andreas Unterberger on his online blog.
Since the latest party conference in Graz, “countless serious points of Babler’s politics have made a coalition with him completely impossible.” Babbler has not refrained from “demands for its countless lands of milk and honey and communism-like attacks on all companies and service providers”. In contrast to the “sensible course” of the SPO in Tyrol, Carinthia and Styria, “the federal party has largely aligned itself with the communists.”
What was for a long time a serious, moderate party has now become a “radical party of the left”. Unterberger: “With its collapse, the SPÖ has begun an unrealistic left-wing radicalism that even a partial realization would be a complete disaster for Austria. Practically all program items that were enthusiastically accepted by comrades are absolutely unacceptable to the middle-class voters of the ÖVP.
The ÖVP must now – and not just before the elections – clearly and unambiguously disassociate itself from this programme, otherwise it risks being ruined. If Karl Nehmer does not draw a clear conclusion, “many ÖVP voters will turn away from him and go to the camp of non-voters or the FPÖ. If he does not now say clearly: ‘With this program and with this party president, the SPV is not an acceptable coalition partner for us!’, then he will be responsible for the ÖVP’s move towards unity.’
So far, the ÖVP has rejected a coalition, but with Kikal-öVP, not with Bablar-SPO. Andreas Unterberger demands that he should do away with it. The reason for the People’s Party’s rejection of the Freedom Party was Kickal’s resistance to Sky Shields. The FPÖ leader’s objections to the missile defense system do not reassure Unterberger either. “The resulting general rejection of Kikl-FPO is not legitimate and certainly not wise. This attitude would become absolutely absurd if the ÖVP did not now recognize – and state it clearly – that Bäbler’s radical leftist course justifies even more a general rejection. The new SPO material speaks against an alliance with the Bubbler-SPO at least twelve times more strongly than the Sky Shield question does against an alliance with the FPEO.
The fact that Austrians will move away from the ÖVP in large numbers without explicitly distancing themselves from the federal SP is largely due to Bübler’s migration policy. “If the SPO talks about additional legal migration routes and demands Austrian help in smuggling in the Mediterranean (disguised as ‘maritime rescue missions’), then for every previous voter there is a new one for the ÖVP. It will be impossible to vote unless they are more clear than that Kikal says: ‘This SPO will definitely not come into government with us.’
An alliance with the SPO would require a list of concrete conditions. According to the longtime political journalist, it would look like this: “We have no new taxes, no relief for illegal immigration, no new non-fiscal benefits, no relief for the AMS+ defunct model , no comprehensive schools, no populist promises in the constitution, no real ownership of apartment owners. In fact, in all these areas things will have to go in the opposite direction. Because we are already Austria because of Corona and two wars. Cannot accept responsibility for even the slightest damage in a delicate situation.
Andreas Unterberger is not optimistic: “OVP, at least at the moment, does not seem to be able to convert the penalty that the bubbler and its course means to them.”
