In Austria, the right-wing opposition party FPÖ elected former Interior Minister Herbert Kickl as chairman with a large majority.

At a party congress in Wiener Neustadt, Lower Austria, 88.2 percent voted for Kickl, who already holds the office of Klubombann (parliamentary group leader) of the FPÖ in the National Council.

He takes the place of Norbert Hofer, against whom he prevailed in an intra-party power struggle.

This is likely to make the FPÖ's opposition style more aggressive.

Kickl also held out the prospect of acting as trustee for the “little people”.

Stephan Löwenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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    Hofer, worn down by Kickl's attacks, but also in poor health, resigned at the beginning of June.

    But he appeared at the party congress with conciliatory words and promised Kickl his support.

    The chairmen of the nine regional associations did the same, including those who were initially rather skeptical of Kickl.

    Hofer claimed to have made the "ship" "afloat" again after the Ibiza scandal of the former FPÖ boss Heinz-Christian Strache.

    In his speech, Kickl confessed to standing on the ground of a “solid ideology”: “I am an ideologist, preferably right-wing too.” He held out the prospect of heated controversies with political competition, but also with “the media” and “ the journalists ”:“ It won't be a honey lick. Not for us, but not at all for the political competitors. ”The Carinthian-born, who recalled his personal origins from a working-class household, presented himself as the successor to the former FPÖ leader and Carinthian governor Jörg Haider,“ a very great teacher ”. From him he had learned the principle that if the media reported unfavorably about him and the more the “Beletage” turned away, then it became clear that one's own policy was correct and that one understood where the population “pinches the shoe”.

    Signals to the traditional SPÖ working class milieu

    As expected, Kickl sharply attacked the political competition, the SPÖ, the Greens, above all and again and again his former coalition partner, the ÖVP of Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

    Shortly after the Ibiza scandal, in which Kickl was not personally involved, his recall as Minister of the Interior was enforced, whereupon the “turquoise-blue” ÖVP-FPÖ coalition broke up in May 2017.

    Kickl now said that he was basically always ready to "reach out" - but not to the "deep state" (meaning the Kurz network) and the "Abolishers of Austria" (meaning the SPÖ under its chairman Pamela Rendi-Wagner ).

    On the other hand, he made a laudatory allusion to the inner-party competitor Rendi-Wagner in the SPÖ, the Burgenland Governor Hans-Peter Doskozil. Kickl's long excursion into the living conditions of his childhood also acted like a signal to the traditional SPÖ working-class milieu. Kickl demanded new elections in the event that the current "turquoise-green" government fails. "Then the cards will be reshuffled." The FPÖ will then play "to win".

    With his speech, Kickl made it clear that he does not intend to make himself “compatible” in any direction in terms of style or orientation, but rather to focus on confrontation on all sides. In doing so, he aims above all to stabilize the FPÖ in its core electorate, which has crashed in polls and elections after Ibiza. However, the FPÖ does not seem to consider future government options to be ruled out.

    Former MP Andreas Mölzer, who is regarded as a “thought leader” without party functions, gave a hint of a possible strategy in a guest article in the Grazer “Kleine Zeitung”. He contradicted an interpretation that Kickls would lead the FPÖ with its fundamentally oppositional course on the sidelines. "You can bet a lot on the fact that if there are corresponding electoral successes, a Herbert Kickl can be just as much a sought-after coalition partner as Norbert Steger, Jörg Haider and then Heinz-Christian Strache were at the time."