Herbert Kickl

Herbert Kickl
Chair of the Freedom Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 June 2021
Preceded by	Norbert Hofer
Minister for the Interior
In office 18 December 2017 – 22 May 2019
Chancellor	Sebastian Kurz
Preceded by	Wolfgang Sobotka
Succeeded by	Eckart Ratz
General Secretary of the Freedom Party
In office 23 April 2005 – 12 January 2018 Serving with Karlheinz Klement, Harald Vilimsky
Preceded by	Uwe Scheuch
Succeeded by	Marlene Svazek
Member of the National Council
Incumbent
Assumed office 23 October 2019
Nominated by	Norbert Hofer
Affiliation	Freedom Party
In office 24 May 2019 – 22 October 2019
Constituency	3 – Lower Austria
In office 30 October 2006 – 18 December 2017
Nominated by	Heinz-Christian Strache
Affiliation	Freedom Party
Personal details
Born	(1968-10-19) 19 October 1968 (age 55) Villach, Carinthia, Austria
Political party	Freedom Party
Children	1

Herbert Kickl (born 19 October 1968) is an Austrian politician who has been leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) since June 2021. He previously served as Minister for the Interior from 2017 to 2019 and general-secretary of the FPÖ from 2005 to 2018.^[1]

Kickl rose to prominence as a campaign director for the FPÖ and speechwriter for Jörg Haider during the 2000s. After the party split in 2005, he became general-secretary and one of its key leaders. In 2017, he was appointed federal Minister for the Interior in the first Kurz government. In February 2018, he ordered a controversial raid on the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism, seizing their data on right-wing extremist groups including the new right Identitarian Movement of Austria close to the FPÖ. He was dismissed from office in May 2019 in the wake of the Ibiza affair, though he was not personally implicated. He returned to the National Council, where he has been leader of the FPÖ faction since 2019. In 2021, Der Standard characterised Kickl as a far-right politician.^[2]