SOMEONE ELSE

The specter of right-wing populism is circling Europe

Traditional political groups are not learning any lessons from what is happening

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Karl Nehamer, Photo: REUTERS
Karl Nehamer, Photo: REUTERS
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Europe is again in shock and disbelief. This time after the Austrian elections in which the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) won, gaining the trust of just under 30 percent of Austrian voters. After the initial horror of the European political mainstream, there is a little relief because the party that many qualify as an extreme right-wing organization is expected not to win the post of prime minister because the election results were distributed in such a way that the majority can be formed by a post-election coalition. And nobody wants to be with the Freedom Party. It may be so, but the fact is that Europe is turning towards right-wing populism or the political sphere of the radical right. The elections in Austria only confirmed such a trend.

In the Austrian parliamentary elections, the People's Party of Austria (ÖVP), which, after being in power in a coalition with the Greens for the last four years, was punished by the voters and received about 11 votes less, so it has about 26 percent of the support of the voters who went to the polls. . The Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) came in third with 21,1 percent of the vote, while the liberal party Neos came in fourth with 9,2 percent, while the Greens finished in fifth place with 8,3 percent. Post-election negotiations are now underway in order to form a majority, and the Narodnjaci do not exclude the possibility of cooperation with the Freedom Party. It's like when the results of the last parliamentary elections were announced in Croatia.

In which the HDZ won, but the election result was weaker than four years ago, so cooperation with the Homeland Movement was imposed as the only possibility. After the coalition was formed, and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković received his third consecutive mandate, the Homeland Movement was fully established, only to eventually disintegrate. One of the foundations of the political program of the Homeland Movement is sovereignty versus globalism. In Croatia, this story did not pass, but in Europe it does pass. There, the advocates of such a program were reborn, and the more tired and frightened Europe is, and their popularity grows.

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, after announcing the results of the parliamentary elections, said that the foundations of liberal democracy must be respected when forming the government, stressing that on the way to the government, he will not support parties that are deeply anti-European and that support Russia in the war against Ukraine. He meant the Freedom Party. As things stand, the Freedom Party is less of a problem for the Austrian political mainstream than its president Herbert Kickl. Because on the night of the election, the Narodnjaci did not rule out talks with the Freedom Party and possible political cooperation, but they emphasized that in any combination, giving Kicklo a mandate or his entry into the future Austrian government is out of the question.

However, it is hard to believe that Kickl will step aside in order for Austria to get an acceptable executive power, given that he is the man who revived the Freedom Party and led it to an election victory from the political margins. European politicians of the center, left and right of the center can now wail over the dire fate and danger of the specter of right-wing populism looming over Europe, but the fact is that right-wing populists are marching in all European countries and are getting stronger. They can scare the Austrian and European public that Kickl is close to Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

When the voters supported the Freedom Party precisely because they are tired of the European Union, they are tired of increasingly difficult life and falling living standards, they are tired of fear. Since the traditional political groups do not learn any lessons from what is happening in many European countries and lose the trust of the electorate, for now the only answer is to form unnatural coalitions. In order for the right-wing populists to hide from the executive power. The big question is whether this is the right answer and whether coalition governments will be stable. Such a scenario can only further strengthen right-wing populism until the European political establishment addresses the causes of the rise of right-wing populists. And one of the causes is the protest against alienated political elites.

(New sheet)

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