Extreme right gains in Austrian election

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Austria was shaken by a political earthquake yesterday when the neo-fascist right emerged from a general election as a contender to be the strongest political force in the country for the first time.

The combined forces of the extreme right took 29% of the vote, with Jörg Haider almost tripling the share of his breakaway Movement for Austria's Future to 11%, while his successor as Freedom party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, saw his party soar to 18%.

The far right's vote doubled compared with the last election in 2006, putting it within less than a point of overtaking the poll victor, the social democrats.

The two big parties, which have run Austria since the second world war, slumped to their worst ever election toll. The Christian democrats (?-VP), fared particularly poorly at around 26%, down 8%. The social democrats (SP?-), under a new leader, Werner Faymann, took around 30% and laid claim to the chancellorship....

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The election has already claimed its first victim: Wilhelm Molterer, chair of the Volkspartei, has resigned after his party lost 16 seats in the lower house. The new leader, Josef Pröll, has not decided whether the ?-VP will enter into another "grand coaltion" with the SP?-, but it's hard to imagine any other solution to this situation. A coalition with the Greens won't yield a majority, and neither the Volkspartei nor the Socialists will likely enter into a coalition with the two extreme right parties -- not that they would enter into a coalition with each other in any event, since there are a lot of personal animosity there between Strache and Haider.

http://kurier.at/nachrichten/wahl/data/m_file7.png

After the Haider wing split from the FP?-, it looked like both factions would suffer at the ballot box. To see the FP?- and now the BZ?- gain at the polls is, to me, rather surprising. It suggests that there is still a good deal of lingering Euro-skepticism in Austria that the major parties have failed to address.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

After the Haider wing split from the FP?-, it looked like both factions would suffer at the ballot box. To see the FP?- and now the BZ?- gain at the polls is, to me, rather surprising. It suggests that there is still a good deal of lingering Euro-skepticism in Austria that the major parties have failed to address.

Both major parties got a slap in their face - soo big to create a poltical situation which has never been their before in recent history.

I doubt that it has (a lot) to do with Euro-sceptism. Or xenophobia.
Two years of political circus by the SP?- (especially they were masters in such) and the ?-VP were just enough for the normal Austrian "Herr Seicherl".
Haider (BZ?-) and Strache (FP?-) have fallen out since some time.
However - you noted that already above, joe - the combined extreme Right is now in an even stronger position than it was in 1999, when Haider made the FP?- the second-strongest party with 27 percent of the vote.

The Austrian politics is funny, in a very peculiar way - I do wonder what coalition they'll make; and how long it will take to be 'crafted'.

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@Walter Hinteler,

I agree that too much can be made of the election results as a victory for the "extreme right," or that the Austrians are just "different." Much of the result can be explained as simply a protest vote against the established parties, and I'm sure that was a part of it. Bavaria saw a similar result in provincial elections yesterday, where the ruling CSU suffered a 17% drop in votes and will now be forced to find a coalition partner after 46 years in the majority. It seems that there's plenty of protesting going on in central Europe these days.

But then if Austrian voters wanted to protest, they could have cast their votes for the Greens or the Liberal Forum (an offshoot of the FP?- , to be sure, but more akin to the German FDP than the FP?-). Instead, the Greens lost votes and the LiF is now nothing more than a tiny fringe party. That they voted for the FP?- and the BV?- -- the differences between which are, to my eyes, extremely minor -- suggests that there is something about these right-wing parties that makes them particularly appealing to voters who are dissatisfied with the major parties.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

That they voted for the FP?- and the BV?- -- the differences between which are, to my eyes, extremely minor -- suggests that there is something about these right-wing parties that makes them particularly appealing to voters who are dissatisfied with the major parties.

I've seen and listened to Haider ('live').
Somehow I can understand why so many people followed the Nazi rhetoric (and that of other populists).
But I better understood, why some fiercely opposed and oppose such.

[When Hannibal crossed the Alps, he ordered the footsore, the weak and similar, to stay there. And so the Bavarian and Austrian regions became populated ... .]

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This is entirely in keeping with my prior predictions.

When you create an environment that the average person believes only extremists can solve, you are more responsible for the outcome than the extremists are.

This trend will continue to play out in Europe, as long as leftist politicians insist on Europeans surrendering their culture to immigrants.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Ehem ... in Austria, they always had either a conservative or a social-democratic or a coalition (of both parties) government.

At least during the last 60 years.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

This trend will continue to play out in Europe, as long as leftist politicians insist on Europeans surrendering their culture to immigrants.

Well, you certainly can try to re-install the EU. And I'm sure some right-wing governments in a few countries will do so.

However, it's a bit peculiar funny when this is related to Austria with its multi-nations history ...

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I wonder what will happen now, since Haider died http=www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-haider11-2008oct11,0,7175732.story?track=rss][b]in a car accident[/b] earlier this morning.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

Ehem ... in Austria, they always had either a conservative or a social-democratic or a coalition (of both parties) government.

And this means what?

Question

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

I wonder what will happen now, since Haider died http=www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-haider11-2008oct11,0,7175732.story?track=rss][b]in a car accident[/b] earlier this morning.

"For us, it's like the end of the world," Haider's spokesman, Stefan Petzner, told the Austria Press Agency.

I'll bet.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

"For us, it's like the end of the world," Haider's spokesman, Stefan Petzner, told the Austria Press Agency.

I'll bet.

Agreeing with the hope that it will happen soon.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Quote:
Ehem ... in Austria, they always had either a conservative or a social-democratic or a coalition (of both parties) government.

And this means what?

I don't believe that the conservative and social-democratic governments as well as the coalition of those two parties were leftist politicians who insist(ed) on surrendering their culture to immigrants.
Besides that, Austria always had had 'immigrants' from the eastern parts of the empire - more than every third family in Vienna has been some part of there .... in the earlier 20th century, that is.

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@Walter Hinteler,

But something precipitated a lurch towards the right.

If not immigration, then what?

PS:

"Besides that," are you actually unable to distinguish between immigration from outside Europe and historical immigration from the eastern parts of the Empire?

I would hazard a guess that the immigrants from the eastern parts of the Empire viewed assimilation much more favorably than do modern immigrants from outside Europe.

I would also hazard a guess that Austrian socio-government was less tolerant of the resistance of immigrants from the eastern parts of the Empire towards assimilation than it is towards a similar resistance from today's immigrants.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

PS:

"Besides that," are you actually unable to distinguish between immigration from outside Europe and historical immigration from the eastern parts of the Empire?

I would hazard a guess that the immigrants from the eastern parts of the Empire viewed assimilation much more favorably than do modern immigrants from outside Europe.

I would also hazard a guess that Austrian socio-government was less tolerant of the resistance of immigrants from the eastern parts of the Empire towards assimilation than it is towards a similar resistance from today's immigrants.

With due respect, Finn: I don't understand that. All the (main) discussion in Austria is about immigrants from Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia , Poland etc. .
(See explicitly Haider's actions and comments.)

And what is the "Austrian socio-government"?

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End of the Road for Haider

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Back to the elections and the forming of a new government: the Social-Democrats (SP?-) as largest party after the elections ...

... got the order to build up a new governemt.
At first, the conservatives (?-VP) were shy about building a great coalition again - but now they want to start talks with the Social SDemocrats quickly (due to the financial crisis, they say)

http://www.kurier.at/nachrichten/227016.php
http://de.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idDEBEE49C0CT20081013
http://www.n-tv.de/OeVP_und_SPOe_wollen_koalieren_Abschied_von_Haider/131020085017/1037136.html
(All in German)

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Frankly, I think everybody would much prefer to be in the opposition.

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My take...

Quote:

Haider’s death offers little hope for the fight against the far right

Joefromchicago was straight on the case here yesterday to comment on the death of Jörg Haider, the charismatic far right leader who has left such an imprint on Austrian politics these last two decades.

Haider was the scourge of Austria, and his self-inflicted death by speeding will not be mourned by many democrats. Unfortunately though, his death does little to stop the renewed momentum for the extreme right in the country.

After suffering an electoral rout in 2002 and a bitter split in 2005, the Austrian far right has demonstrated its resilience, regrouping and coming right back up again to score its best elections result ever earlier this year. And the story of its resurgence offers a sobering lesson for those European democrats who believed that the far right could be defeated through cooptation. It provides a similar reality check for those who were still betting on the far right’s dependency on rare charismatic leaders.

Extreme right gains in Austrian election

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