Where the FPÖ has been normal for years

There are elections in Austria on Sunday – and the right-wing nationalist FPÖ is leading in all polls. Party leader Kickl could become the first FPÖ chancellor. In the city of Wels, an FPÖ government has been the norm for years.

Anyone who comes to Wels in Upper Austria will quickly see that the city is doing well. Exemplary restored houses on the town square. Low parking fees. The town hall is a magnificent baroque palace. Andreas Rabl from the right-wing nationalist FPÖ has lived here as mayor since 2015. He has already been elected twice. A tour of the squares and the pedestrian zone shows where his FPÖ signature is visible.

What stands out are several surveillance cameras. For the mayor, they are a central element of his policy, because Wels should be safe. Rabl emphasizes the advantages: “It has an extremely good general preventive effect. And that has led to a massive increase in the subjective feeling of security.” A new police station opened two streets away. The city made the building available cheaply.

Rabl's understanding also includes cleanliness in the city of 65,000 inhabitants. There shouldn't be any dirty places in Wels. The vacancy rate has been significantly reduced thanks to effective city management.

“Not only rights, but also duties”

And the mayor expects migrants to integrate quickly. “Law and Order” – a basic idea in Rabl's integration policy. “Someone who comes here and is a guest here has to adapt, they have to learn the language so that they can become part of this society. That is also important to me,” says Rabl and adds: “We live that in the education sector just as much as in the world Social sector. Because we believe: Integration is not only a right, but also an obligation and these obligations must also be sanctioned if they are not fulfilled.

For his critics, this is FPÖ propaganda. The economically prosperous city of Wels relies on people from other cultures. The approximately 4,000 local companies need an influx of workers.

Accusation of being only moderate

Johann Reindl-Schwaighofer and Christian Stöbich are in opposition to the mayor. You are traveling in the Noitzmühle residential area, a district that is considered a social hotspot due to the large number of migrants. For Stöbich from the Wels Initiative Against Fascism, the mayor and his FPÖ are only being moderate. “The FPÖ can now, as the dominator of the city government, sit back, so to speak, be more moderate, calm down and stop this escalation of fears that they previously caused.”

Reindl-Schwaighofer is a city councilor for the social democratic SPÖ. He sees that many of the mayor's announcements were not implemented at all. For example, apartments will only be allocated to migrants who speak German. That wasn't even possible.

However, Reindl-Schwaighofer accuses the FPÖ mayor of making a distinction between politically good and politically bad foreigners. “There are already a few groups where he's trying really hard. And everything is fine there. But these are exactly the people who correspond to the expectations, who all go to work, where the children go to school, study and whatever else,” says the SPÖ city councilor.

Federal FPÖ wants “absolute immigration stop”

Now, in the ongoing election campaign for the National Council election next Sunday, the federal FPÖ is once again using the narrative of too many foreigners. In their election program, the right-wing nationalists are calling for a “Fortress Austria” and an absolute stop to immigration. Just like Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban does.

At the presentation of the election program in August, party leader and top candidate Herbert Kickl presented his migration policy: “The minimum security only for our citizens. That is a home advantage. I am committed to it. No asylum applications in Austria. We are surrounded by safe countries. Whoever If the migration of peoples stops, it also stops the import of Islamism.”

Is the first FPÖ chancellor coming?

Kickl accepts this and he can have hopes of becoming the first FPÖ chancellor. The FPÖ has been leading the polls for months. Kickl's promise to the voters: I want to be your people's chancellor.

At the start of the election campaign in Graz at the beginning of September, he was confident of victory and called out to his supporters: “Let's draw the red-white-red bow together and let's set our sights on our goal together. And then we'll shoot the blue arrow of freedom. This blue arrow of freedom, but on September 29th it will hit the bull's eye.”

If Kickl wins and the FPÖ co-governs in the near future, it would not be the first time that the right-wing national party comes into government responsibility at the federal level. Since its then chairman Jörg Haider formed a coalition with the conservative ÖVP in 2000, the FPÖ has been considered electable.

The team of ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his coalition partner, FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache followed later. The FPÖ now sits in three state governments: in Upper Austria, in Lower Austria and, since April 2023, in Salzburg.

Concern about Nazi trivialization

During his tour of Wels, Mayor Rabl is stopped several times by fans. Rabl is close to the people. Young people want a selfie. An older woman hugs him because he helped look for an apartment. And FPÖ supporters wish him and himself much success in the National Council election. “Keep your fingers crossed that Blue wins. We need that for Austria,” they shout to him.

His critics are not comfortable with the idea that the FPÖ could soon have more influence in Austria. They see a danger to democracy and also fear that the Nazi past will be trivialized.

Johann Reindl-Schwaighofer and Christian Stöbich point out that in the middle of the city there is a copy of a Roman statue that the Nazis were happy to give away as a miniature. And that streets are still named after Nazi officials, like Kuhnstrasse. In Wels, Richard Kuhn is honored, who developed the poison gas Soman for Hitler's war of aggression.