Austria’s Right Conjures Ghosts

Not until 200,000 absentee ballots are counted at the end of this week will the final results of Austria’s national election be known, but the preliminary outcome has already raised concerns across much of Europe. Joerg Haider’s Freedom Party appears to have become Austria’s second largest, making the best showing of any European far-right party since World War II as it bumped the conservative People’s Party into third place and shattered a half-century of consensus politics in Austria.

The alarm being expressed outside Austria is prompted in large measure by that country’s modern history. As the Times of London commented, “The ghosts of the Nazi past have never been properly exorcised in the land of Hitler’s birth.”

Haider’s appeal to alienation and xenophobia, the admiration he on occasion has expressed for certain of Hitler’s policies and for some of those who served the Nazi leader, inescapably summon those ghosts.

Haider’s strong showing came on familiar populist themes. In Europe’s third most prosperous nation he appealed to prejudices against foreign workers, to the fears of small business people about the expansion of the European Union’s powers, to anger over high taxes--though he also promised to boost costly welfare benefits--and to boredom and dissatisfaction with the governing parties.

With some variations, these are the classic themes of third parties, including those in the United States, as they reach out to alienated voters.

Chancellor Viktor Klima, whose Social Democrats will remain the largest party in parliament, has ruled out any coalition with Haider. Ahead could lie months of maneuvering to form a new government. Note that more than 60% of Austrians voted for the centrist parties. It’s the 27.2% that chose Haider’s Freedom Party that leaves many Europeans anxious.