Welcome to this week’s edition of Teen Politics: Weekly Politics Unpacked, in which, I explain how from the Monday just gone (6.1.25) the far right in Austria seems ever closer to government, and why, also on Monday, Justin Trudeau resigned as Prime Minister of Canada. But also, in light of the many constantly evolving news stories centred around Elon Musk, I recommend a Channel 4 documentary which asks, is he a superhero or supervillain? And last, but certainly not least, I urge you to sign Liberty’s petition to protect our right to protest in the UK.
The Austrian Far Right: One Step Closer to Government
This story goes all the way back to 29th September 2024, when Austria held legislative elections for the 183 members of the National Council – the lower chamber of the Austrian parliament, similar to the House of Commons in the UK. Before the elections, polls strongly favoured the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and their leader Herbert Kickl, who campaigned on the promise of “Fortress Austria — closing borders, guaranteeing security”.
On 3rd October, it was announced that the polls were correct and FPÖ won their first legislative election victory, gaining 57 of 183 seats – an increase of 26 from the 2019 elections. Followed by the Austria People’s Party (ÖVP) who won 51 seats, down 20 from the previous elections. And then the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) with 41 seats, the New Austria (NEOS) party with 18, and The Greens with 16. Despite having the most seats, FPÖ were 35 short of the 92 seats required to form a government. Therefore, the task turned to agreeing a coalition government — a task which is still yet to be completed and now seems to position the far-right to ascend to power. But how?
Firstly, for clarity, the outgoing ÖVP-Green government led by Chancellor Nehammer (of the ÖVP) was asked to stay on in a caretaker role by the President, Alexander Van der Bellen. And in Austria, it is convention that after an election, the President asks the leader of the largest party to negotiate and establish a coalition government. However, following the announcement of the results, Van der Bellen pledged to ensure the next government respected the “foundations of our liberal democracy”.
Before Van der Bellen had formally or officially asked anyone to form a government, he suggested the party leaders “sort things out on their own” and encouraged them to continue talks to find a potential coalition agreement. This is because Van der Bellen argued the situation was unique, in that no other party wanted to work with the FPÖ, and so it was not reasonable to task Kickl with forming a government. However, these talks resulted in a personal dispute between Nehammer who said he refused to be “the stirrup holders of Kickl” and that “Kickl is unable to govern”, to which Kickl responded by calling Nehammer “an offended and aggrieved sore loser”.
Eventually, and in a break of convention, Van der Bellen officially asked Nehammer to form a coalition government on 22nd October by negotiating with the Social Democratic Party. But even if an agreement was reached, this coalition wouldn’t be very practical, as it would have a majority of just one seat. As a result, the search for a third coalition partner began, and it is at this point which Nehammer warned the “road to a new government will be long and stony”. Just less than a month later, widened coalition talks began, seeking to incorporate NEOS into an ÖVP-SPÖ-NEOS coalition. But by 3rd January 2025, it was reported NEOS had withdrawn from the talks, meaning the next steps towards stable government were unknown, with everything from the Green Party entering talks to new elections rumoured as possibilities.
However, with reported disagreement between the ÖVP and SPÖ on key issues, Nehammer announced his resignation from both the party leadership and chancellorship on 4th January. The next acting chancellor was to be foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg, appointed on 10th January, and on 5th January Christian Stocker was elected as acting ÖVP leader. On 6th January, more importantly, in the midst of this leadership change, Van der Bellen officially asked Kickl to begin exploratory talks to form a coalition government. But fortunately for Kickl, this leadership change has brought a more willing negotiator to the table, as Stocker has confirmed ÖVP would “not refuse talks with the FPÖ”. Although it is very concerning that the initial objection to collaboration with the FPÖ seems to be softening, despite their anti-immigrant and pro-Russia stances, and their founding by former Nazis in 1956. Such worry has since been expressed by 10,000s of people who have taken to streets across Austria to discourage the ÖVP from forming a coalition.
Ultimately, this story continues to develop, so we can only predict the success of coalition negotiations and other steps on the path to government. Regardless, empowering the FPÖ to form a government poses an ever greater threat of the far-right solidifying their power and their ability to impose extreme and racist policies, which is likely to inspire the growing far-right across Europe.
Why did Trudeau Have to Go?
On Monday (6th January), the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, announced his resignation as both Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party. He confirmed that he would remain in office until a new leader was chosen by the party, and that parliament would be prorogued (last memorably done in the UK illegally by Boris Johnson in 2019 to prevent scrutiny of Brexit plans, basically meaning suspended) until 24th March. But why did he?
Well, now aged 53, Trudeau has been Prime Minister for just over 9 years, after first winning a sweeping majority in the 2015 election. A victory which was made possible by a youthful charisma and a hopeful political message of “Sunny Ways”, and also which made Canadian political history, as the Liberals climbed from third place to holding a majority of seats in parliament. Although since, in the 2019 general election, his party’s seats were reduced to a minority, resulting in reliance on other parties to stay in power. Further, his fortunes were not improved in 2021 by a snap election.
On one hand, it is easy to point to his relatively successful policy record: a commitment to gender equality in his cabinet (which continues to be 50% women); improved relations with Indigenous people in Canada; a national carbon tax; tax-free child benefits; and the legalisation of recreational cannabis. But unsurprisingly, not everything has gone quite so well over such a long premiership, especially recently.
Perhaps understandably, as he is among Canada’s longest serving prime ministers after more than nine years in power, there is a general sense of fatigue and frustration which has emerged gradually over time with his government.
If you can cast your mind back to the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccine mandates and other restrictions introduced by the Canadian government were met with fierce backlash by some Canadians, for example leading to the Freedom Convoy truck protests in early 2022. These were resolved by Trudeau’s eventual use of unprecedented emergency powers to remove the protesters, which as you can imagine were equally unpopular. And as Canada began to emerge from the pandemic, similarly to the rest of the world, the cost of living crisis emerged and housing and food prices skyrocketed. At the same time, his government pulled back on ambitious immigration targets to meet the needs of public services.
As a result, over the summer of 2024, discontented voters rejected Liberal candidates in a number of special elections thought to be safe seats for the Liberals, leading to the beginning of internal party unrest. Liberal party members were no longer afraid to say publicly that they no longer supported his leadership and in the following weeks, dozens of Liberal MPs called on Trudeau to step down. And according to CBC, in December, a majority of Liberal MPs in the province of Ontario agreed, on a call, that Trudeau should step down. He had become an increasingly polarising figure for voters, and therefore unelectable in the eyes of his party – with Trudeau recognising this on Monday, saying “it’s time for a reset” and for the “temperature to come down” in Canadian politics.
Beyond just his party, by late 2024, Trudeau’s approval rating reached its lowest, with just 22% of Canadians reporting they thought he was doing a good job. But the internal pressure on Trudeau to resign only continued to mount in December 2024 when Chrystia Freeland, deputy prime minister and minister of finance, resigned. In her resignation letter, she accused Trudeau of not doing enough to address the “grave challenge” posed by Trump’s threats of tariffs on Canadian goods. In response, it has been announced that sweeping new security measures along the country’s US border will be implemented. And Trump has since claimed that Trudeau’s resignation was due to the pressure of tariffs, and repeated his desire for Canada to become “the 51st State”.
Also following Freeland’s resignation, the left-leaning New Democrats, and the Quebec nationalist party, Bloc Québécois, both withdrew their support for Trudeau’s Liberal party government. Meaning Trudeau was left with few options as the opposition parties all signalled they would move for a non-confidence vote in January when Parliament returned, claiming the “Liberal government does not have the confidence of Parliament”. Therefore, having now resigned, it has been suggested by the Bloc Québécois leader, Yves-François Blanchet, that an early election should be called once the Liberals choose their new leader, instead of waiting until the deadline of 20th October.
Additionally, for months the Conservatives, who are the largest opposition party led by Pierre Poilievre, have maintained a worrying lead in the polls – meaning if a general election were to be held today, the Liberals could suffer a significant defeat. To rectify this, the Liberals now have an opportunity to select a new leader to take the party into the next election. Whoever they pick would be primarily competing against the Conservative’s Pierre Poilievre, a 45-year-old career politician who is said to have presided over a “Trumpification” of the Canadian Tories, moving it further to the right than any previous Conservative leader.
Ultimately, whilst the Trudeau era of generally progressive reform, especially when it comes to relations with First Nations people and climate policy, is over. However, the future of the change Trudeau set in motion rests in the balance of the next Liberal leader (read about possible contenders here). Given the central point of contention will be an election battle with Poilievre who is said to have ‘trumpified’ the Canadian Tories. So in a similar conclusion to Austria, only time will tell what happens next on the road to a new government.
Weekly Recommendation and Action
Given the current discussion of Elon Musk in the wider media for the influence he has sought to exercise in relation to UK and US politics, for this week’s newsletter, I thought it would be appropriate to recommend this Channel 4 documentary about him which questions whether in reality he is a superhero or supervillain?
And this week, you can support Liberty’s call to the UK government to defend the right to protest by signing their petition which demands that the 2023 Public Order Act, and the 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act are scrapped.
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