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Old October 13th, 2017 #16
Ravening Wolf
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Move over AfD, here comes Austria’s far-right

Freedom Party looks set to share power after Sunday's elections, could become junior coalition partner to center-right People's Party


By PHILIPPE SCHWAB

Quote:
VIENNA, Austria (AFP) — Alternative for Germany became the third-biggest party in the Bundestag last month but its far-right Austrian ally, the Freedom Party, has a shot at sharing power after elections on Sunday.

The FPOe, one of Europe’s most established nationalist parties, is forecast to come second or third and could become junior coalition partners to Sebastian Kurz’s conservatives.

Founded in 1956, the FPOe emerged from the short-lived Federation of Independents, launched after World War II by former Nazis who had been stripped of their voting rights.

The party, whose first chief was an ex-officer from the Waffen SS, also drew pan-Germanists — believers in unifying with Germany like in the Third Reich — and liberals fed up with the ruling centrist establishment.

Over the decades, the FPOe increasingly encroached on two main parties, the Social Democrats (SPOe) and conservative People’s Party (OeVP), which have dominated post-war Austrian politics...

...Haider had tried to remedy the situation by purging the party’s extremist elements, but was increasingly pushed into a corner.

He eventually left to create a new movement, clearing the path for the FPOe’s new leader in 2005 — ambitious dental technician Heinz-Christian Strache.

The former member of a radical student fraternity had not been impressed with Haider’s more moderate approach and began to reintroduce what critics called openly racist slogans.

When the approach failed to translate into votes, FPOe strategist Herbert Kickl persuaded Strache to adopt a less contentious stance.

Taking a leaf from Marine Le Pen’s makeover of the National Front in France, Strache toned down his rhetoric and focused on social issues as the global economic crisis hit in 2008.

The FPOe began distancing itself from neo-Nazi, racist and anti-Semitic comments of some of its most prominent members, while also proving adept at using social media.

The strategy paid off in spades. Last year the party’s candidate Norbert Hofer narrowly lost a presidential runoff against Greens-backed economics professor Alexander Van der Bellen.

The FPOe was leading national opinion polls until earlier this year when Kurz, just 31, became head of the center-right People’s Party (OeVP).


Sebastian Kurz (born 27 August 1986) is an Austrian politician, who has been Austria's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration since 2013. He had been described as Europe's youngest Foreign Minister at an age of 27. In May 2017 he became the chairman of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). The right wing Sebastian Kurz is likely to become the next Austrian Chancellor and its youngest leader ever this Sunday.

By tacking right — introducing a full-veil ban and proposing benefits cuts for immigrants — Kurz has stolen supporters in droves from the FPOe.

This has incensed Strache, 48, who despite mocking Kurz as his “biggest fan” in slick television adverts, has been unable to recover the lost ground.

Strache could form a coalition with Kurz however and become deputy chancellor, although the clamor of 2000 is unlikely to be repeated.
Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/move-o...ias-far-right/
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Last edited by Ravening Wolf; October 14th, 2017 at 12:14 AM.