Austrian People’s Party nominated its General Secretary Christian Stocker as its interim chief on Sunday, according to Viennese news agency APA. After partnership negotiations with the Social Democrats fell, Nehammer announced on Saturday that he would step down in the coming weeks.
Stocker, a solicitor and part of the Austrian Parliament, has served as general secretary of the Women’s Party since 2022. He is regarded as a skilled and composed problems communicator who has often appeared in Hungarian media to defend questionable decisions.
Who may serve as acting president until a new government is established is not known for the time being.
Nehammer walked from the Chancellery to the mayor’s office in Vienna, protected by particular police forces.
He said,” What’s important for me is that the way of stability and the center can be continued.”
When the conference with Nehammer is over, Austria’s President Alexander Van de Bellen will release a public statement announcing the next steps.
After his father Sebastian Kurz was forced to step down due to corruption allegations, the 52-year-old Nehammer became president and liberal party president in 2021.
Nehammer became the first president of Europe to travel to Moscow and join with Vladimir Putin since the country’s first invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. In Kyiv, he likewise met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before moving to Moscow.
After the democratic group NEOS pulled out of coalition negotiations with the center-left Social Democrats and the conservative People’s Party on Friday, Austria was in political turmoil. The two remaining events, who have a razor-thin majority in Parliament, made yet another attempt on Saturday to form a government, but negotiations even failed after a few hours, with negotiators reporting that they were unable to come to a consensus on how to address the budget deficit.
