Austria's far right set for comeback in Sunday's elections
VALENTINA POP
26.09.2008 @ 10:06 CET
Austria is having a bout of deja-vu, as the far right may win enough votes to become a junior coalition member in the country's national elections on Sunday (28 September). Austria will also be the first EU country where teenagers over 16 will cast their ballots.
Following the break-up of the grand coalition between the centre-left Social-Democratic Party (SPO) and the centre-right People's Party (OVP), the early elections due on Sunday are hardly likely to solve the deadlock, with each of these parties plunging below 30 percent in the latest polls, while far right parties are catching up in the surveys, suggesting that they could become a potential coalition partner.
Jorg Haider still dreams of being Austria's chancellor. (Photo: Bundnis Zukunft Osterreich)
Back on the billboards is the controversial Jorg Haider, whose right-wing party became a junior coalition member with OVP in 2000, causing an EU-wide outcry and isolating Austria for some months from the international scene.
Though leader of a minor party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZO), Mr Haider dreams of becoming Austria's next chancellor, while the latest polls suggest he might win eight percent of the votes on Sunday, thus doubling the current seats his party holds in the national parliament.
A much bigger score - 18 per cent - is expected for his former party, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), now under the leadership of Heinz-Christian Strache, who campaigns for tougher immigration rules with slogans such as "Flights home for asylum cheats."
Mr Strache recently failed to win a court action against a magazine that accused him of having neo-Nazi contacts.
Once Mr Haider's protege and now his staunchest rival, Mr Strache excludes an alliance with BZO and aims at governing alone with the Social-Democrats or the Conservatives.
"We want to become so strong that we can govern either with the SPO or the OVP. It doesn't matter to me which of the two parties comes to its senses," Mr Strache, who also likes to call himself StraCHE – alluding to Latin American guerilla leader Che Guevara - said in an interview with Salzburger Nachrichten.
Yet political scientists in Austria are reluctant to predict a new coalition with the far right. Rather, they argue a return of the grand coalition is more likely, or the formation of a Social-Democratic minority government.
Teen vote
In an attempt to balance out the country's ageing constituencies as a result of low birth rates, Austria has become the first European Union country to lower the voting age in national elections to 16.
Last year, the number of Austrians aged 65 and older exceeded the population aged 15 and under. Observing this demographic trend, the Austrian Parliament passed a law in 2007, lowering the age limit from 18 to 16. Sunday's poll is the first electoral test of the new law.
A few other nations allow voting at 16 - Brazil, Cuba, and Nicaragua, as well as UK Channel Islands Jersey and the Isle of Man, while Germany allows it in some local elections.
Media impact
The pole position of the Social-Democrat Party, while within a two per cent margin of error, could be accounted for by the open support for the party from the nation's biggest tabloid newspaper, the Kronen Zeitung, with a readership of 42 percent of the Austrian population.
Hans Dichand, the newspaper's octogenarian publisher, openly uses his paper for pet political issues, such as opposing the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, while in this campaign, Mr Dichand has set himself the target of making the Social Democratic leader, Werner Faymann, Austria's next chancellor, the Financial Times writes.
In a letter to the paper in July, the Social Democrat leader pledged to hold referendums on future EU treaties, making a shift in the party's stance, as it had already ratified the Lisbon Treaty. But the paper's campaigns have not always been successful, as in early 2000, Mr Dichand opposed the coalition of the OVP and Jorg Haider's party.
Austrian political scientist Fritz Plasser told the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper that there is great pressure for a grand coalition to be formed again, adding that he would not be surprised if the Kronen Zeitung stopped criticising the People's Party the next day after the elections and back the return of the coalition.
