Helmut Nikel

Helmut Nikel (* 1966 ) is an Austrian politician ( BZÖ ). Since June 2017 he has been state party chairman of the BZÖ Carinthia, which has been the only remaining part of the former ruling party since the BZÖ Vienna was dissolved in July 2019.

Career

Helmut Nikel began his political career in the Grafenstein local council , of which he is still a member. After Johanna Trodt-Limpl , at that time both federal chairwoman and Carinthian regional chairwoman of the party, had announced that she would leave politics, the previous deputy chairman Nikel was elected as the new Carinthian regional party chairman on June 3, 2017. Trodt-Limpl temporarily retained her office as federal party leader; it has been vacant since her retirement. Nikel took over the BZÖ Carinthia in a difficult phase. After Jörg Haider's death, more and more functionaries returned to the FPÖ . In the national elections in Austria in 2013 , the party failed to return to parliament, and several national organizations had already dissolved. Only in the Carinthian state parliament was the party still represented by two members, Johanna Trodt-Limpl and Wilhelm Korak . The upcoming state election in Carinthia in 2018 was therefore of particular importance for the party.

Shortly after his appointment, Nikel publicly accused his predecessor of embezzling party funds, and the public prosecutor's office opened an investigation. In order to forestall an expulsion from the party, Trodt-Limpl and Korak then declared their exit from the BZÖ Carinthia, but kept their state parliament mandates as non-party members. The BZÖ was no longer represented as a party in the state parliament and lost the right to party funding in the high six-figure range. In the following state election, the BZÖ with Helmut Nikel as the top candidate was only able to win 0.37% of the Carinthians and thus not win back the seats in the state parliament.

In the run-up to the National Council election in Austria 2019 , Nikel and BZÖ General Secretary Karlheinz Klement announced that they would run for the BZÖ nationwide. Due to a lack of declarations of support, however, the party was only represented on the ballot paper in Carinthia under the name Allianz der Patrioten . After Martin Sellner , spokesman for the Austrian Identitarian Movement , was briefly discussed as the top candidate for the BZÖ, the Vienna state party broke up in protest. Within Carinthia, too, there was turmoil in the party shortly before the election. The deputy chairman Karl Heinz Nadasdy "and two other board members" excluded Helmut Nikel, Karlheinz Klement and the top candidate Martin Rutter from the party in a public letter. The reason given was that decisions relating to running for the National Council election had been made without the approval of the party executive. For his part, Nikel reacted by expelling the undersigned from the party. In the election he ran behind Martin Rutter in second place on the list, within Carinthia the BZÖ achieved 0.2% of the vote.

Web links

• https://www.bzoe-kaernten.at/

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Provincial election proposals Carinthia. Federal Ministry of the Interior, accessed on October 7, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Parish council of the market town Grafenstein. Grafenstein parish, accessed on October 7, 2019 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Helmut Nikel new BZÖ chairman. ORF Carinthia, June 4, 2017, accessed on October 7, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Carinthia's former BZÖ MPs lose their immunity. Die Presse, January 30, 2018, accessed October 7, 2019 . 
5. ^ Off for BZÖ in the Carinthian state parliament. ORF Carinthia, July 20, 2017, accessed on October 7, 2019 . 
6. ↑ State election March 4, 2018. State of Carinthia, accessed on October 7, 2019 . 
7. ↑ BZÖ Carinthia wanted Identity boss Sellner as the top candidate. Courier, July 18, 2019, accessed October 7, 2019 . 
8. ↑ Politics: BZÖ politicians exclude each other. ORF Carinthia, September 3, 2019, accessed on October 7, 2019 . 
9. ^ Austria - National Council Election 2019. Federal Ministry of the Interior, accessed on October 7, 2019 .