Do we like them?

Do we like Herbert Kickl?

Our score: 2 out of 10. He pushed an unproven Covid drug, leads a party whose language mirrors the AfD's, and I found no verified good deeds to balance that.

Herbert Kickl is the face of Austria's Freedom Party (FPÖ). He took it to first place at the September 2024 national election with 28.85 per cent, and on EU election night he promised to “zünden die nächste Stufe”. Coalition talks with the ÖVP then collapsed, and the FPÖ went into opposition with him still at the helm.

The clearest harm on the record is Covid. In 2021 and 2022 he repeatedly advocated the horse-dewormer ivermectin for Covid, in place of leaning on vaccination. Vienna's authorities wanted to prosecute him under the Medicines Act, which bans lay advertising of prescription-only drugs. In May 2022 parliament's immunity committee voted unanimously not to hand him over, because it saw a link to his work as an MP.

On the rhetoric, profil reported in 2025 that his speeches had grown more repetitive and more radical, including calling SPÖ leader Andreas Babler a “linke Zecke”. It also reported that the FPÖ's ties to Germany's AfD are close and that the party uses similar language. Search summaries I read also show him pushing a 'remigration' law, which I couldn't open in full this run, so I'm leaning on what I did read.

He's not a pushover in court, though. Austria's top court rejected an appeal by the NGO Plattform Österreich over a pre-election video that linked him to Hitler through his 'People's Chancellor' slogan. It must pay him €4,000 in damages. The judges found the slogan alone didn't justify that link, so that's one smear on him that failed.

The ÖVP's version of the failed coalition talks is that he sat in for only eight hours and was unwilling to build a connection with them. That is their account, not a court finding. profil also reports that younger state leaders like Marlene Svazek are gaining influence, and that he reportedly doesn't communicate with them.

Nothing in what I read shows charity, a cost-paying stand for others, or work for the people he'd be asked to speak up for. That's the honest list. Nothing confirmed from the last few months made it into the sources I could open, so check current news for his chancellor push.