Austria’s sharp-tongued far-right leader Herbert Kickl does not exactly cut a dashing figure but he has skillfully tapped into voter anxieties over migration, the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic.
Neither as charismatic as the former leader Joerg Haider, nor as bullish as his predecessor Heinz-Christian Strache, he has made his career largely behind the scenes as the longtime ideologue of the Freedom Party (FPOe).
But under 55-year-old Kickl, a marathon runner and climber, the party has rapidly regained ground lost after a string of corruption scandals and is expected to win Sunday’s national elections.
Since taking charge in 2021, the FPOe has risen in the polls to about 27 percent — sharply up from 18 per cent three years ago.
Buoyed by discontent over soaring inflation, Kickl has profited from the plummeting popularity of the ruling coalition of conservatives and Greens.
And on Ukraine he has criticised EU sanctions against Moscow, and said Austria should remain neutral.
In June’s European elections the FPOe topped the poll for the first time nationally, taking more than a quarter of the vote.
A professional politician, Kickl studied philosophy, history, communication and political science before starting to work for the FPOe in 1995.
But little is known about his private life and he has maintained a low profile, with voters warming to his tidy and trustworthy demeanour, in contrast to his flamboyant predecessors.
But his bland, unassuming image contrasts with his virulent rhetoric, which he expertly employs against political opponents, slamming President Alexander Van der Bellen as a “senile mummy”.
“He is the rudest politician in the country,” said journalist Nina Horaczek, who analysed Kickl’s speeches in a book published this year.
“It’s a way of discrediting those who think differently,” she added.
However, Kickl has also avoided debates and interviews, denouncing the media for their “lack of objectivity”.
Instead he has relied on social media. The FPOe sparked fury last year with a video espousing an extremist conspiracy theory that white Europeans are being replaced by migrants.
It also featured the Vienna balcony where Adolf Hitler gave his speech when he returned to his homeland in triumph after the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938.
The FPOe was founded by former Nazis, and Kickl has frequently employed terms reminiscent of the party’s troubled past, including calling himself the future “Volkskanzler” — the people’s chancellor — as Hitler was termed in the 1930s.
“It’s a well targeted provocation with two aims — to get people talking and to send very clear signals” to the party’s most radical fringes, said Horaczek.
Kickl denies “Volkskanzler” is a Nazi reference, insisting that several politicians had claimed the term for themselves in the past.
But the far-right leader has never made a secret of his closeness to extremist groups, expressing his support for the Identitarian Movement as early as 2016.
He has also espoused the far-right concept of “remigration” that calls for expelling people of non-European ethnic backgrounds deemed to have failed to integrate.
In 2018 during his time as interior minister, Kickl oversaw a controversial raid on the country’s secret service, where documents on the links between the FPOe and extremist circles were seized.
And in April, prosecutors launched a corruption investigation against him amid claims that public money was embezzled to pay for adverts in return for alleged favourable coverage.
Last year, Kickl appeared on posters in his home region of Carinthia, dressed in a green parka jacket with military overtones alongside the slogan: “Fortress Austria — closing borders, guaranteeing security.”
For the upcoming national elections, he has changed into a suit, but has kept the slogan.