| | The Haider Story Recently, Tom Fox posted a link about 'the decline of the Austrian Right' on his Paris weblog. There was a brief discussion on the topic in the comments to this post, during which I promised to write a brief summary of what I think about the situation of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the possible election results in November. Here's the result of my thinking.
After World War II, the Nazi party was forbidden in Austria, but already in 1948 the Allied forces (USA, UK, France, USSR), which were occupying Austria at the time, allowed the foundation of a political party called the VDU (Verband der Unabhängigen - translates roughly as "Independent Party"), which consisted to a substatial degree of former Nazi party members who had either not been actively involved in war crimes, had been exonerated, or had served their prison sentence. This party later evolved into the FPÖ. The FPÖ has always had a nationalist element, but also a liberal one, and the party history can be read as a constant struggle between these forces. When Jörg Haider took over party leadership in 1986, it was lacking direction and had dwindled to about 5% of the votes.
Much has been said and written about Haider's political stance; what is mentioned less often is the highly erratic element in his politics. While decidedly right-wing, he is able to take 180-degree turns in his political program from one day to another, according to what he thinks suits him and the party best.
The same is true of his numerous resignations from Austrian federal politics: while he has been consistently serving as governor of the province of carinthia, Haider has withdrawn from and returned to federal politics so many times that no-one here in Austria takes his announcements seriously any longer. A number of convictions in court for not telling the truth also did not help his credibility. According to a recent poll, 58% of all Austrians do not believe his resignation is for good.
One day after his so far penultimate announcement to withdraw last week (which provided the original inspiration for Tom's posting), Austrian newspapers reported that Haider's name was included on the FPÖ's list for eligible candidates for parliament, effectively guaranteeing him a seat in parliament. A lengthy discussion between the federal branch of the FPÖ and the Carinthian branch (who had nominated Haider) followed, which ended with Haider's so far latest announcement to withdraw.
Still, everybody here in Austria believes that he will return to the political scene sooner or later. At the moment he is merely keeping a low profile. He does this because it is obvious that the FPÖ will lose a significant number of votes in the upcoming elections, and he certainly does not want to take the responsibility for that. Like always before critical elections, there's some front candidate who can be disposed of if the results are not as expected, so that Haider himself is not affected and he can present himself as the saviour afterwards. This is very consistent behaviour.
I would be very hesitant to make statements about the results of the upcoming elections. In short, anything is possible. This is because many people who voted for the FPÖ in the last election did so not because they were right-wing sympathizers (or even Nazis, as some foreign commentators wrote). They were merely voting for change and saw no alternative other than the FPÖ.
In 1999, the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) had been in government since 1970; the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) had joined them in a coalition since 1986. The period from 1986 to 1999 had seen a constant stagnation of Austrian politics, constant compromise between two opposing ideologies, and a constant waning of these ideologies towards an undefinable something. Politics were made by a caste of professional politicians and the voice of the citizen was not heard; not in theory in terms of personal response by the politicians and not in practice, as they were constantly following compromises that pleased no-one, instead of coming up with solutions that would have helped at least part of the population.
Enter Haider and the FPÖ.
Haider criticised exactly this weak point of the coalition government: a political caste that is preoccupied with maintaining its own position of power and has no relationship with the citizens any longer, and political decisions that are not going anywhere. It was not as if he was pointing in a direction that many people liked; it was rather that, unlike the other parties, he was pointing in any direction at all. Plus, he drew a picture of th FPÖ as a party in which everyone could participate and contribute to put their ideas into practice. It wasn't just his populist politics that made the party successful; it was mostly the idea he created that the FPÖ was listening to the people and would let them participate.
That was, of course, an illusion, as recent events have shown. The FPÖ is still an authoritarian party in which Haider's will is the guiding principle and anybody not agreeing with him will be removed instantly; as soon as the more moderate politicians had gained too much power in the FPÖ, the right-wing hardliners took over again.
When the illusion became obvious a few weeks ago, those voters and party members who had supported the FPÖ because they had felt the party gave them an opportunity to participate suddenly lost their political homestead. It's hard to say how large the percentage of these people is and who they are going to vote for now. My guess is that they will rather not vote at all than vote for another party, but anything is possible.
Current polls would indicate that the Freedom Party can expect about 13% of the votes (the Green Party are currently also at 13%). However, Austrian polls must always be taken with a huge grain of salt, as Austrians tend to say one thing and will always invariably do another (this probably goes back all to the way to Metternich's police state of the early 19th century - call it a national characteristic, if you wish). In the past the Freedom Party typically always had about 30-40% more voters at the elections than in polls, just as the Green Party always gets only about 50% of the votes that they should get according to polls. It's therefore hard to say what to expect this time.
I would say that the group of right-wing Haider followers amount to about 10-12%. That would be the number of people who admitted they'd still vote for the FPÖ at the lowest point of the current party crisis. The decisive factor is to what extent the "soft-core" FPÖ voters will vote for FPÖ, for another party (basically, they could defect to any of the other three, as the FPÖ has no clear-cut ideology), or abstain from voting altogether.
My guess is that the election result will be about as close as the recent result in Germany.
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