Herbert Kickl

 ( 1968 Births ) 

After Haider left the party in 2005 and launched the Alliance for the Future of Austria, Kickl remained with FPÖ and became one of his harshest critics. In the aftermath, Kickl was elected general-secretary of the FPÖ and director of the party newspaper Neue Freie Zeitung, positions which he held until 2018 and 2017 respectively. As general-secretary he was responsible for public relations and internal communication, and was considered the chief strategist of the FPÖ and the "right-hand man" of leader Heinz-Christian Strache. He was elected to the National Council in 2006 and served as deputy chair of the FPÖ parliamentary faction. From 2016 to 2021, he was president of the FPÖ Education Institute.

In a press conference on 11 January 2018, Kickl said he wanted "services centres and infrastructure that would allow the authorities to concentrate asylum seekers in one place", which was widely interpreted as an allusion to concentration camps, though he denied that the phrasing was intentional or that he sought to be provocative.

In March 2018, Kickl suspended Peter Gridling, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT), and ordered raids against its offices and the homes of a number of staff, seizing nineteen of data. Kickl claimed that his actions were necessitated by Gridling and the agency's failure to delete sensitive data. His actions were criticised by opposition politicians, who accused him of seeking to undermine the independence of the BVT and to protect right-wing extremist groups close to the FPÖ. President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen described the events as "extremely unusual and disconcerting". Government spokesman for security Werner Amon stated that the interior ministry had failed to work through the proper channels, and that unprompted searches of staff members' homes was not normal procedure.

Kickl was criticised in September 2018 after an email addressed to the police by his ministerial spokesman surfaced recommending that they limit contact with critical media outlets to a bare minimum. This prompted criticism from Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who condemned "any restriction of freedom of the press". Kickl stated he did not approve of the email's content, and the FPÖ accused the media of conducting a coordinated witch hunt against him. Kickl has also been accused of wielding the police for political purposes, lodging legal complaints against individuals and journalists who write negatively about him.

In January 2019, Kickl voiced his demand for faster deportation of refugees who had committed crimes, stating that deportation should be possible immediately after conviction, before full legal process has been completed. He later corrected his position, stating that the full legal process should be carried out before deportation, but further said: "I believe that it is up to the law to follow politics, and not for politics to follow the law." He questioned the necessity of human rights agreements, including the European Convention on Human Rights, claiming that they "prevent us from doing what is necessary". He received widespread criticism for his statements which were perceived as an attack against the rule of law, including from ÖVP members of the government, President Van der Bellen, various judges' and lawyers' associations, and president of the Jewish Community of Vienna Oskar Deutsch.

In early 2019, Kickl proposed to amend the constitution to allow preventive detention of asylum seekers who could be considered a threat to public safety. NEOS leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger refused to consider discussions for such an amendment, criticising detention based purely on potential danger as a feature of authoritarian regimes. Kickl also proposed a curfew for asylum seekers between 10 PM and 6 AM on a voluntary basis and commented: "If they don't want to do that, we will find a place for them where there is little incentive to hang around." He stated that the aim of a renewed tightening of asylum law was to make it virtually impossible to apply for asylum in Austria. He also announced that reception centres for refugees would be renamed to "departure centres" from March, a move which social psychologist Klaus Ottomeyer described as "pure sadism".

As interior minister, Kickl pushed to expand and strengthen the Federal Police. The programme of the ÖVP–FPÖ government included plans to hire 4,100 new police officers. In April 2018, the ministry announced that the special Vienna standby police unit would be permitted to use , similar to other special units. In August, Kickl announced plans to establish standby units in all nine states. Further, a new border protection unit named Puma was established. The government also launched a pilot program to introduce mounted police, which was unsuccessful. Expenses for the project amounted to around €2.5 million, according to the Kurier.

According to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, as general-secretary of the FPÖ, Kickl was primarily responsible for the party's financial management. He stated it would therefore be inappropriate for the interior ministry, which would conduct the investigation into the scandal, to be overseen by Kickl. For this reason, and because in Kurz's view he had not taken the severity of the situation seriously, he requested that President Alexander Van der Bellen dismiss Kickl as interior minister. He was dismissed on 22 May. Kickl thus became the first federal minister in the Second Republic to be removed from office against his will. In response, the remaining FPÖ ministers resigned and the party withdrew from the coalition, prompting Kurz to call a snap election.

Kickl and Hofer were considered unofficial "dual leaders" and often came into conflict. While Hofer sought to take a moderate line, Kickl positioned himself as "the true party leader" and pushed for hardline stances on a number of issues. He took a strict position against the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading misinformation, opposing vaccination, and attending anti-lockdown protests. He was criticised by Hofer over his refusal to wear a mask in the National Council.

In the 2024 Austrian legislative election held on 29 September, the FPÖ gained a plurality of seats in the National Council, the Party's support increased from 16% to 28.85% of the vote, placing first and achieving its best result in the party's history. However, no party in parliament agreed to form a coalition with it or agree to have Kickl become Chancellor, which led to President Alexander Van der Bellen asking outgoing chancellor Karl Nehammer of the ÖVP to form a new government on 22 October. In response, Kickl criticised Van der Bellen for breaking with the "tried and tested normal processes" of asking the leading party in the election to form a government and pledged that "Today is not the end of the story". Since then, the party has rapidly surged upwards, reaching 35-37% in different polls from December 2024.

After Nehammer failed to form a government and resigned as chancellor in January 2025, Kickl received a mandate from Van der Bellen to form the next government on 6 January. However, Kickl was also unable to form a government and returned his mandate on 12 February.

During government formation with the ÖVP in 2017, Kickl stated that his goal in politics was to "make society more fair". Society is fair, he said, when one can support one's family through gainful employment and live a self-determined life without "social dependence".

Kickl attracted attention in 2016 as the keynote speaker of the "Defenders of Europe" conference in Linz, which was organised and attended by various far-right, antisemitic, and racist groups and figures, including far-right media outlets such as Compact and both Austrian and German Neo-Nazism groups. The Wiener Zeitung described it as an attempt to blur the boundaries between the Neue Rechte, right-wing populism, and classical right-wing extremism.

Kickl has since maintained ties with many of the same groups. In 2018, he opposed moves by the FPÖ to distance itself from the ethno-nationalist Identitarian movement; subsequently, during the 2019 election, Identitarian leader Martin Sellner bought advertisements encouraging preferential votes for Kickl. In June 2021, he described the Identitarian Movement as "an interesting project, worthy of support", and in 2023 reiterated his opposition to a "red line" against them. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he regularly attended and spoke at rallies alongside far-right activists, including neo-Nazi Gottfried Küssel.

During the 2024 federal campaign, Kickl styled himself as "Volkskanzler" (People's Chancellor), a term also used around 1933 by the Nazi Party in reference to Adolf Hitler. Kickl has denied the connection. He has also described the other political parties as "system parties", a term also associated with the Nazis.