A NEW coalition government was agreed in Austria today, which excluded the far-right party that won the country’s general election in September last year. 

A statement from the right-wing Austrian People’s Party (OVP), the centre-left Social Democrats (SPO) and the liberal Neos said they had agreed on a programme for a coalition after 129 days — the longest post-election hiatus in post-World War II Austria.

The country’s politicians broke a record of 129 days to form a new government that dated back to 1962.

OVP leader Christian Stocker is expected to become chancellor. 

This was the second attempt by the three mainstream parties to form a new government without the far-right, anti-immigration and Eurosceptic Freedom Party (FPO), which won 28.8 per cent of the vote in the September 29 election.

Their first effort collapsed in early January, prompting the resignation of then-Chancellor Karl Nehammer — and setting the scene for Austria’s president to ask FPO leader Herbert Kickl to try to form a government.

Mr Kickl’s own attempt to put together a coalition with the OVP, which finished second in the election, collapsed in mutual recriminations on February 12. 

The mainstream parties, which faced the risk of a new election, resumed their effort to find common ground.

The outgoing government, a coalition of the OVP and environmentalist Greens, now led by interim Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg, has remained in place on a caretaker basis since the election.

The OVP and SPO often governed Austria together in the past but have the barest possible majority in the parliament elected in September, with a combined 92 of the 183 seats.

That was widely considered too small a cushion, and the two parties sought to bring in Neos, which has 18 seats and hasn’t previously joined a national government.