Herbert Kickl, FPÖ Secretary General, told Sputnik Germany that Norbert Hofer together with FPÖ stood up to the combined might of the political and media institutions which did their best to prevent changes from happening; that he made considerable strides and almost managed to catch up to the representative of that alliance.
"Also, we shouldn’t forget that the political agenda remains the same: there’s still the threat of Islamism, the country is facing mass unemployment and reforms are stagnating. All of this didn’t go away, and Norbert Hofer was able to lay a very good foundation for further internal political changes," he remarked.
Kickl also pointed out that that the media coverage of this election turned into a campaign waged by the mass media establishment against the FPÖ candidate, and that Hofer ended up facing a "media steamroller unlike anything in the republic’s history."
"If the media value their influence which they keep talking about, if their goal is to be the Fourth Estate, then perhaps they should come to their senses and change their strategy; they should return to covering political events instead of playing politics themselves," Kickl said.
Nevertheless, Hofer managed to achieve some significant results, losing to Van der Bellen by a rather small margin, and proving that FPÖ has charismatic figures other than its leader Heinz-Christian Strache as their opponents claim.
Meanwhile, while it remains unclear how Van der Bellen may actually react to FPÖ attempting to participate in the formation of the new government, it’s clear that the party should now focus its attention on the upcoming parliamentary election.
"What we need to do is conduct a successful election campaign so that we could operate from a position of strength while negotiating the creation of a new government. But in order to achieve this, we’re going to need all the strength FPÖ can muster. But if we base our future actions on what we’ve managed to achieve today with Hofer, then I believe our chances for success are very high,” Kickl concluded.
