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The long-simmering leadership struggle in the SPÖ has now broken out into the open. Media manager Gerhard Zeiler has publicly announced that he wants to take over the chairmanship of the Social Democrats. The 71-year-old is thereby directly challenging incumbent party leader and Vice Chancellor Andreas Babler. A decision on the party’s future leadership has not yet been made.

Zeiler justified his move with the SPÖ’s difficult situation. The party currently stands at around 15 percent in the polls and, in his view, must become stronger again. “I believe I am the right person to lead the party out of this historic low,” Zeiler told the *Kronen Zeitung*. He later reiterated his ambitions on *ZiB 2*.

Substantively, Zeiler links his claim to the party chairmanship with a clear economic-policy shift. He calls for a “business-friendly course” and wants to relieve the economy of bureaucracy. A strong economy is, in his view, the prerequisite for being able to finance the welfare state in the long term. At the same time, he described himself as a classic social democrat and explicitly distanced himself from Marxism and class struggle.

On individual tax questions, Zeiler also sets different accents. He is in principle open to an inheritance tax, but wants such a burden to be combined with a corresponding relief of the factor labor. In the fight against inflation, he names lower energy prices among other goals. Investments in education and health as well as a reduction of duplications in public subsidies are also part of his ideas.

Andreas Babler, however, has no intention of voluntarily relinquishing the party chairmanship. He points out that he was only elected in March at the SPÖ party congress for a further three-year term. Should Zeiler actually run, the prescribed internal party rules would have to be observed.

It is now clear for the first time that the issue is no longer merely a general debate about the SPÖ’s course, but two concrete personnel options. Zeiler himself declared that he would of course participate in a membership survey. Under the currently known party rules, such a direct election can be demanded by at least ten percent of SPÖ members.

Support for Zeiler has so far come mainly from the circle of former SPÖ state governors. Former Styrian Governor Franz Voves and former Carinthian Governor Peter Ambrozy spoke positively about Zeiler. At the same time, numerous incumbent SPÖ officials are holding back from public statements. Support for Babler came among others from Women’s Minister Eva-Maria Holzleitner and State Secretary Michaela Schmidt.

How the power struggle will end is currently open. Equally open is whether there will be a membership survey or a special party congress. Zeiler declared in any case that, if elected, he would initially want to stick with the existing federal government. He is not seeking an immediate new election and could also imagine the office of Vice Chancellor.

For now, only one thing is certain: the SPÖ faces an internal directional and personnel decision. On one side stands party leader Andreas Babler, confirmed only in the spring; on the other stands Gerhard Zeiler, an internationally experienced media manager who advocates a more economically oriented course. Who will stand at the head of Social Democracy in the future will ultimately be decided by the responsible party bodies or—should it come to that—the SPÖ members.

In the election to the Berlin House of Representatives on 20 September 2026, Die Linke became the strongest political force in the state for the first time. According to the provisional final result it reached 25.7 percent and more than doubled its result compared with 2023 (12.2 percent). The CDU followed at a clear distance. At the same time, the previous CDU-SPD coalition lost its majority.

The Berlin success is above all connected with the issue of housing and cost of living. Lead candidate Elif Eralp placed the housing question at the center of the campaign. Die Linke also won the most votes in six of Berlin’s twelve districts. Government formation, however, remains open: after Die Linke’s electoral success, the SPD and Greens have formulated conditions for further talks, particularly regarding the handling of antisemitism, the protection of Jewish life, organized crime, and social cohesion.

A remarkable international parallel comes from New York. There, Zohran Mamdani has been mayor since 1 January 2026. He is the city’s first Muslim and first African-born mayor. Politically he describes himself as a democratic socialist and combined in his campaign social demands such as lower housing costs, free buses, and an expansion of childcare with a distinctly pro-Palestinian stance.

On 23 September 2026, during UN General Assembly week in New York, Mamdani hosted a meeting titled “Building an Economy for the Many,” attended among others by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and European Council President António Costa. Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen met Mamdani on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly; the conversation became known on 24 September. According to the Austrian Presidential Chancellery, the topics were international cooperation and partnerships. Mamdani expressed particular appreciation for Vienna’s model of affordable housing. Van der Bellen subsequently published a video of the handshake with the sentence: “A proud European meets a proud New Yorker.”

Mamdani in particular illustrates the connection—often perceived as contradictory—between progressive left-wing politics and Muslim political mobilization. On one side stand classic left-wing themes: redistribution, social services, affordable housing, workers’ rights, and expansive social policy. On the other side, Mamdani’s Muslim identity plays an important role. At his inauguration on 1 January 2026 he took the oath of office on a Quran; during his campaign he had deliberately visited mosques and mobilized support among Muslim and South Asian voters.

The alliance is therefore interesting because religion and progressive politics do not automatically presuppose the same social values. The political overlap arises rather around concrete interests and conflicts: social inequality, migration, housing costs, and especially policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. Analyses of the New York election show that Muslim voters supported Mamdani among other reasons because of his social-economic agenda and his stance on the Gaza war. In areas with high Muslim population shares he received particularly strong support.

In Berlin as well, the connection of left-wing politics, migration, and Middle East policy has by now become a central point of conflict. After its election victory, the Berlin Left is under particular scrutiny because of positions of individual members and activists on the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as antisemitism accusations. The party itself emphasizes its commitment to Israel’s right to exist; possible coalition partners at the same time demand a clear stance against antisemitism.

What therefore connects the events in Berlin and New York is less a uniform “alliance of the left and Muslims” than a new political pattern: progressive parties and movements can develop strong overlaps with Muslim voters and activists where social distribution, migration, discrimination, and Middle East policy are concerned. At the same time, considerable tensions remain possible—especially on questions of religion, social values, and the handling of antisemitism and Israel. The events of September 2026 thus show above all that the political coalitions of the urban left are changing and that traditional dividing lines between class, migration, religion, and identity politics are increasingly overlapping.

The AfD achieved a record result in the state election in Saxony-Anhalt. With 43.8 percent of second votes it became clearly the strongest political force and more than doubled its result compared with the 2021 election. The CDU reached 17.2 percent, the SPD 9.3 percent.

Despite the clear electoral victory, it is not enough for the AfD to form a government alone: it holds 39 of the 83 seats in the state parliament; an absolute majority would require 42 mandates. Government formation is therefore difficult. CDU, SPD, Greens, and Left have ruled out cooperation with the AfD. The BSW reached 5.3 percent and entered the state parliament with five deputies.

The result thus marks a clear shift in the political balance of power in Saxony-Anhalt. Turnout, at 77.8 percent, was also well above that of 2021.

Unusual unity in the U.S. tech industry: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for a slowdown in the development of ever more powerful AI models. Progress is now so fast that safety measures and control mechanisms can barely keep pace. Amodei therefore advocates, among other things, independent auditors and a controlled limitation of the pace of development.

He received surprising support from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Altman emphasized, however, that “pacing” does not mean a halt to development: AI development will continue to advance rapidly, but should proceed more slowly than is technically possible. Demis Hassabis of Google also supported the demand for more safety precautions.

U.S. President Donald Trump takes a clearly different line. He wants to keep the pace of American AI development high, also in order to secure the technological lead over China. Trump rejected calls for a general slowdown and argued that the United States must remain leading in the AI race.

Two positions thus currently stand opposed: the AI companies warn of the risks of an uncontrolled race, while the Trump administration emphasizes above all the technological and economic competitiveness of the United States. How an internationally coordinated slowdown could even be implemented and controlled remains open so far.

Attacks continue while talks about a resumption of peace negotiations are simultaneously being held. The Kremlin recently declared that Russia remains in principle ready for negotiations, but made their continuation dependent on its own interests.

A further burden is added for Europe’s energy supply: the situation in the Middle East continues to cause considerable uncertainty on the oil market. Although exports from the region rose again in September, the important Strait of Hormuz remains a factor of uncertainty. Before the conflict began, a substantial share of global oil trade passed through this route.

The price of Brent crude rose on Tuesday to around 107 dollars per barrel. Oil thus remains well above the 100-dollar mark. Further developments depend essentially on whether diplomatic efforts between the United States and Iran lead to a lasting opening of the important trade route.

For Europe, the combination of the war in Ukraine and uncertain oil supply in the Middle East continues to pose a considerable risk to energy prices and inflation.

Letters to the Editor

Left-wing electoral successes in Berlin and the Van der Bellen–Mamdani encounter

Die Linke has become the strongest force in Berlin for the first time. In New York a democratic-socialist mayor receives European heads of state and praises the Viennese housing model. At first glance both appear as two separate pieces of news. In fact they are one and the same pattern: progressive power politics combines social redistribution, migrant milieus, and Middle East mobilization into a capable urban coalition. Anyone who dismisses this merely as a “leftward shift” underestimates the matter. It is a strategic attack on that camp to the right of center that still takes individual and political freedom seriously—and on the astonishing willingness of that camp to help in the process.

On 20 September 2026 Die Linke more than doubled its result in Berlin to 25.7 percent. Elif Eralp had sharpened the campaign on housing and cost of living; in six of twelve districts the party became the strongest force. The previous CDU-SPD coalition lost its majority. Since then the SPD and Greens have formulated conditions: antisemitism, protection of Jewish life, organized crime, social cohesion. That is not a side note. It shows that the success already at the moment of its occurrence stands under the reservation that makes it politically interesting: the overlap of left-wing social policy, migrant voter milieus, and Middle East stance is large enough for an election victory—and at the same time so fragile that possible partners immediately demand safeguards.

Three days later, on the sidelines of UN week in New York, Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen met the new mayor Zohran Mamdani. Officially it was about cooperation and Mamdani’s appreciation for Vienna’s model of affordable housing. Van der Bellen published the handshake with the sentence: “A proud European meets a proud New Yorker.” Mamdani, in office since 1 January 2026, the city’s first Muslim and first African-born mayor, had assembled his campaign from social demands and a sharply pro-Palestinian line. At the inauguration he took the oath on the Quran; in the campaign he deliberately mobilized in mosques and among Muslim as well as South Asian voters. The meeting “Building an Economy for the Many” with Pedro Sánchez and António Costa was no accidental program. It was the international calling card of a new urban left.

This is precisely the core. Religion and progressive politics do not automatically share the same values. The connection arises around concrete interests: housing costs, redistribution, migration, the discrimination narrative—and above all Israel and Gaza. This is not an “alliance of the left and Muslims” in the sense of a community of worldviews. It is an interest-based querfront. It works as long as one does not name the contradictions: between individual freedom and religious authority, between women’s and gay rights and conservative community orders, between the secular constitutional state and identitarian mobilization. The left does not need to resolve these contradictions. It only needs to manage them—and sell them outwardly as morality.

The natural place of spiritual and political balance is the right-wing camp!

An enlightened Islam, if it takes seriously the freedom of the individual, equality before the law, and the separation of faith and coercion, does not belong in the camp of redistribution and identity management. The same applies to an enlightened Judaism. Spiritual attachment, tradition, family, measure, and responsibility are not left-wing raw materials. Where they appear voluntarily and without a claim to domination, they are natural components of a right-wing universalism. The left-wing camp can only do something with religion when it serves as minority identity, victim status, and foreign-policy lever. As soon as the same religion makes its own moral demands, it is either romanticized or—selectively—fought. The present solidarity is therefore not a theological alliance. It is a power-political one.

A right-wing universalism cannot avoid this situation. It must do two things at once: defend the freedom of the individual against collectives—against the state, against the community of conviction, against the religious congregation—and at the same time name the scorched-earth hyper-individualization that treats attachment, duty, and meaning as suspect. Whoever can do only one of these will become either a culture warrior without freedom or a libertarian without society. Precisely in this gap the new urban left operates. It offers community via identity and material compensation—and in return demands the shifting of the dividing lines: class, migration, religion, and Middle East policy overlap. Anyone who dismisses this as a marginal phenomenon has not read Berlin and New York.

The mobilization of cultural defense reflexes and economic frustration does not replace a political philosophy!

All the more serious is that parts of the right-wing camp assist this strategy with a naivety that can no longer be excused as tactics.

In Austria that means above all: the Kickl system. Herbert Kickl plays the would-be opposition monopolist and would-be people’s chancellor. He has heart for the country, no doubt. But he leads the Freedom Party like a bellwether who wants to protect the flock by declaring the farmyard an idyll and bleating loudest himself. Problems are not ordered; they are drowned out. Strategically and substantively this is weak: easy to co-opt for anyone who repeats populist sentences, calms broad groups, and otherwise continues as before.

Hoping for Kickl has become the popular sport of the powerless. The opposite is not excluded; reliable evidence for it has so far been thin. From a community of worldviews a community of mood has become—fluffy blue, quickly closed, just as quickly scattered. The reason is simple: Kickl relies on identity politics instead of principle politics. Loyalty built on identity and authority cannot carry liberal results. For authority-loyalty can be taken over, bent, and compromised at will. Lothar Höbelt hit the point: whoever builds opposition this way easily becomes the left’s best horse. Not because he is left-wing—but because he reduces the liberal camp to mood, enemy image, and person and thereby renders it incapable of fighting as soon as the left operates the same identity levers better.

The questionable instrumentalization of the Palestine conflict

No less questionable is the instrumentalization of the Palestine conflict from the other side of the camp. Sebastian Kurz undermines the integrity of right-wing politics when he measures Van der Bellen’s appearance in the UN environment primarily by whether criticism of Israel remains loud enough. Friendship with Israel does not consist in remaining silent about the obvious. The massacre of 7 October 2023 with around 1,200 victims was a crime that grounds every right of self-defense. It does not follow that every later military action in the Palestinian territories automatically keeps measure and law. Whoever declares carpet bombing and drone operations over residential areas, planned land seizure, and expulsion of the resident population the unquestionable template of future security policy confuses solidarity with cadaver obedience.

What cannot be justified cannot be justified—even when it comes from a friendly side. A right-wing policy that grants Israel the right to exist and security must at the same time be able to distinguish between a democratic state and a concrete government policy. Whoever refuses this harms not only the debate about the Middle East. He harms his own camp because he makes it morally blackmailable. The left then only needs to point to real casualty figures, real destruction, and real settlement policy—and the right-wing reflex of dismissing all of it as mere enemy propaganda delivers it the next mobilization.

The thesis that Netanyahu is a product of the neoconservative generation and that this in turn was shaped by a pendulum swing of former Trotskyists of the late 1970s who, by overstretching the conservative principle, bring about the reversal into the opposite, is pointed. It has to be if it is to be a warning: crypto-leftists in conservative clothing are not an invention of a feuilleton. The pattern is known from the United States—the switch from radicalism of one side to radicalism of the other, with an unchanged tendency toward total explanation. Whether one now reads Kurz as a Trojan horse or as an interest politician who does not see the historical dimension behind material ties: the effect is the same. The right-wing camp is fixed on a line that it can neither justify in liberal terms nor sustain domestically.

Culture war in the classroom

The same applies to the culture war in the classroom. Since the beginning of the 2026/27 school year, a headscarf ban for schoolgirls under 14 has applied in Austria. Teachers must identify, admonish, and report violations; in case of repeated refusal, administrative fines threaten the parents. The public service thereby stands at the limit of its capacity. The consequences of a failed migration policy are now to be compensated by ideological infection-control measures: the education of usable citizens by reporting obligation. Teachers are neither trained nor extra paid for this. Instead they are forcibly recruited for the ideological battlefield of the school.

One can reject the headscarf as a political sign and still recognize that the state here repeats the same mistake as with the corona measures: it transfers to the school system a totalitarian and divisive task for which it was not built. Classroom harmony does not arise when girls with covered heads are made official business. What arises is a climate of hostility—and the illusion that integration has been accomplished because a symbol has been banned. Protection against infection with wrong ideas is not an educational mandate. It is state religion with a different justification.

The events of September 2026 must not become a red October!

The events of September 2026 therefore show less a closed “alliance” than a shift in coalition capability. Progressive parties can build majorities with Muslim voters and activists where distribution, migration, and Middle East policy coincide. At the same time the tensions remain: religion, gender order, antisemitism, Israel. The Berlin Left affirms Israel’s right to exist and is nevertheless under observation; SPD and Greens demand clarity. Van der Bellen talks about housing and films the handshake. Mamdani talks about buses, childcare, and Gaza. This is no accidental choreography.

Whoever wants freedom must not answer this with mood, personality cult, or blind foreign policy. An enlightened religious life has a place in the liberal camp if it does not regard the constitutional state as an enemy. Islamism has no place there—and in the left only because it is needed as identity and as lever. The querfront is the attack. The stupidity consists in either running after it or fighting it with bans and loyalty rituals that overburden the state and betray freedom.

To the right of center one does not win this confrontation as a pasture farm or as a mercenary of foreign narratives. One wins it only as a party of principles: property and contract, border and citizenship, measure and truth—even when the truth is inconvenient. Everything else is contributing to the other’s victory.

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