| Author (Person) | Steen, Edward |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | 05.10.06 |
| Publication Date | 05/10/2006 |
| Content Type | News |
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To widespread surprise, Wolfgang Schüssel this week found himself eight points south of the election victory he polled in 2004. All opinion pollsters were wrong-footed; they had consistently given him and his conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) a three or four point lead. More to the point is what now beckons, a ‘grand coalition’ on the German model between Red (the Socialist SPÖ, led by Alfred Gusenbauer) and Black, the ÖVP. It is a prospect relished by few apart from the likely new chancellor, Gusenbauer and his friends. Sunday’s elections delivered the coup de grace not just to Schüssel, but to one of the most controversial political experiments in post-war Europe - the alliance in 2000 of a ‘bourgeois’ party, the ÖVP, with Jörg Haider’s populist, proto-fascist Freedom Party (FPÖ). Haider had thrived in the fetid, debate-crushing air of the grand coalition, and came second in the elections. Schüssel, third, made what many saw as a pact with the Devil to become chancellor. At the time it evoked uproar throughout the EU and a year of political sanctions. The Schüssel-Haider deal broke a taboo, even if blame for the renascent right must be laid more generally at the door of half a century of democratic politicians who failed to debate immigration or ‘multiculturalism’ with any courage or candour. His defenders argue that Schüssel’s fracturing of the long, suffocating, stranglehold by the ‘grand coalition’ allowed reforms which produced a palpable wellbeing in Austria. Schüssel gave proper jobs to some of Haider’s people. It was argued at the time that the effect was to deflate, and eventually destroy, the far right. From this experiment emerged a highly popular finance minister, Karl-Heinz Grasser, who soon quarrelled with Haider. But missing in all this politicking was authentic political leadership. As the former Socialist chancellor Franz Vranitzy pointed out this week, it was the failure to make the case for Europe, the deafening silence about it in the election, which allowed the right to mount its aggressive campaign equating Europe with immigration, and opposing Islam to Daham (dialect for ‘home’). The Austrian political mood is a fairly typical muddle: a desire for plenty of social security in the widest sense, a better environment, coupled with an insular, unsustainable nationalism. Some in Vienna argue that it was Schüssel’s arrogance which turned voters against him. Certainly the campaign posters showing him drinking mountain water with the caption "We are having a good time in Austria" verged on the insulting and the Socialist victory suggests people actually wanted to hear about social justice, education and health. Nor did Schüssel’s evasions about the illegal Slovak immigrant looking after his mother-in-law square well with his denial that there was a healthcare crisis. Meanwhile his opponents on the right, a noyau dur of around 15%, up 5% on 2002 - made hay with the new normality of nationalistic, anti-immigrant and especially anti-Muslim attitudes. The quarrelsome baby crocodile Schüssel let out of the bottle is still out there, and under another grand coalition will thrive, and will no doubt have to be appeased again. And as Winston Churchill once remarked, an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. To widespread surprise, Wolfgang Schüssel this week found himself eight points south of the election victory he polled in 2004. All opinion pollsters were wrong-footed; they had consistently given him and his conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) a three or four point lead. |
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| Source Link | http://www.europeanvoice.com |
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| Countries / Regions | Austria |
