Austria’s main parties are preparing to begin tense wrangling to form a government amid warnings about the country’s democracy after the far right’s watershed victory in a general election in which angry voters punished centrist incumbents over migration and inflation.
On Sunday, the anti-Islam, Kremlin-friendly Freedom party (FPÖ) scored its strongest result since its founding after the second world war by former Nazi functionaries and SS officers with just over 29% of the vote. The outcome surpassed expectations and beat the ruling centre-right People’s party (ÖVP) by nearly three percentage points. The centre-left opposition Social Democratic party (SPÖ) turned in its worst-ever performance with 21% while the Greens, junior partners in government, sank to 8%.
So you’re a party in power, you’re clearly extremist, you send the police to raid the organization that’s investigating your extremism and you steal all the evidence. Next year you win the elections.
And, so, apparently this is in the middle of Europe, not in Venezuela.
Tbh they did lose after the whole H.C. Strache scandals got leaked by the German press and German comedian Jan Böhmermann made fun of it on television. Most of those scandals were back in 2019 when H.C. was head of party and vice chancellor and Kickl was the minister of inner affairs. Shortly after the Austrian government collapsed and the FPÖ went into opposition. And now, 5 years later it won with Kickl as head of party.
But yeah, this would be more fitting to some African or South American country than a Central European one. :')
Exactly. You also sell your country to a Russian oligarch while on drugs. This becomes a huge meme and essentially 100% of the popualtion has heard the story. 5 years later you win the elections and form the government.
I’d say these elections are a landmark in democratic failures of modern history.
Austria is top 20 HDI, the popualtion is educated and informed, there’s a free press, living standard is one of the highest in Europe, there’s a strong social security system, unions, Vienna keeps winning at being the most liveable city in the world (with 25% of the Austrian population living there). The list goes on.
How is such election outcome possible?