On Thursday, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) and Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens) offered Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen to resign.

But before anyone gets excited, this was a pro forma act, owing to a tradition of the government offering to resign to the head of state at the beginning of their term.

Although Van der Bellen has been in office for six years, he was re-elected in the autumn and “sworn in”, as they say in Austria, on Thursday for his second term.

He then listened to the ritual gesture of submission behind closed doors, before telling the cameras that he "thankfully acknowledged this offer" but did not accept it.

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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The ritual could be viewed as a distant republican echo of the Spanish court ceremonial that was once prescribed right here, in the Hofburg.

But it is not without substance.

Because the Federal President has powers in Austria that can play a role in power politics, especially in times of unrest and unclear majorities.

Van der Bellen in particular was able or had to show that during his first term in office: the key words are the Ibiza affair, a vote of no confidence, and government officials.

It is the president who appoints and dismisses chancellors and ministers.

Such measures would not hold up against a parliamentary majority, but nothing works against the President either.

This is exactly what is being discussed these days with a very concrete background.

The FPÖ benefits from its oppositional attitude

Because the term of office of the "turquoise-green" government will last until autumn 2024. But the ÖVP and the Greens are doing pretty badly, at least in the polls, and seem to be a long way from a new majority.

The ÖVP suffers from affairs and embarrassing chats from Sebastian Kurz's time, dripping from investigation files, and both are feeling the consequences of the crisis cocktail with the pandemic, the Russian war, inflation and migration.

But it is not the social democracy who profits.

The SPÖ mainly has to do with itself and its latently open leadership question.

But it is the right-wing FPÖ, led by former Interior Minister Herbert Kickl.

In recent polls, it stood at around 28 percent, well ahead of the SPÖ and ÖVP.

The FPÖ benefits from its fundamental oppositional attitude against “the system” in all of the crises mentioned.

Kickl is accordingly self-confident.

At every opportunity he makes clear his claim to be Chancellor in a future government.

And be it as recently in a press conference about the pandemic under the motto "And the Schurbler were right," by which he meant himself.

Regional elections are just around the corner

But the Federal President also has a say in this, and he did so this week in an ORF interview.

When asked about Kickl, Van der Bellen replied that the chancellor's appointment was his "personal decision".

And according to the oath of office, he is not only bound by the constitution, but also by his “best knowledge and conscience”.

He becomes “an anti-European party .

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who do not condemn Russia's war against Ukraine, do not try to promote it through my measures".

And he also had a comment on Kickl's tenure as Interior Minister, during which an illegal raid on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution took place.

In short, Van der Bellen didn't explicitly rule out being sworn in to Kickl, but implicitly he did.

Accordingly, the indignation at the FPÖ was partly clumsy (“authoritarian act,” it said in a statement), partly sarcastic (“Aha. Very neutral. Very democratic,” wrote Kickl).

Important regional elections are now being held under this sign.

In Lower Austria, the largest federal state with 1.3 million voters, the composition of the state house in St. Pölten will be redefined on Sunday.

It seems clear that the ÖVP under Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner will lose the absolute majority in their stronghold.

With less than 40 percent, however, there is also a risk of losing the executive chair.

The SPÖ has not completely ruled out making FPÖ state leader Udo Landbauer state governor.

In any case, preventing "Blue-Red" is the last means of mobilization for the ÖVP.