Vienna [Austria], March 30: The conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) gave a landslide endorsement to Chancellor Christian Stocker as party leader at its conference in Vienna on Saturday.
Receiving some 98% of the votes, the 65-year-old lawyer underscored his distance from the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) - the winner of parliamentary polls in the autumn - which, according to Stocker, has a penchant for Donald Trump.
FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl's role model is the US president, said Stocker.
"But I am not a partner for an Austria that is 'Trumped up'," said the Chancellor in a speech that largely ignored the country's ongoing recession and massive budget deficit.
Following the collapse of talks between the FPÖ and ÖVP, Stocker formed a government with the Social Democratic Party SPÖ and the liberal NEOS at the beginning of March.
He had already been the party's acting leader since early January, when Karl Nehammer resigned as ÖVP leader and chancellor, citing his rejection of coalition negotiations with Kickl.
Stocker, known as pragmatic and level-headed, took over the task.
His rise from local to national politics came late: he entered parliament in 2019 and became Secretary General of the ÖVP three years later.
Source: Qatar Tribune
