Word: mainstreamers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fears in Europe that Hitler's native land was seeing a resurgence of neo-Nazism. But the success of the two far-right parties is not a reprise of the 1930s; it is the consequence, say commentators, of more recent developments. There is massive disenchantment with the country's mainstream Social Democratic Party and conservative People's Party, which have shared power in a "grand coalition" in Austria for all but 18 of the 63 years since the end of the Second World War. Their latest coalition government lasted just 18 months and was widely considered a catastrophe for failing...
Most Austrian awoke with a shock on Monday when they learned that two anti-immigrant, anti-E.U. parties together won an unprecedented 29% of the vote in Sept. 28 elections, bringing the far right almost even with the mainstream Social Democratic Party in the Austrian Parliament. The Freedom Party and the breakaway Alliance for the Future of Austria - led by former Freedom Party leader Jörg Haider - managed to double the far right's share of the vote in the two years since the last elections...
...astonishing to see how the mainstream parties have resurrected the right wing in Austria," says Thomas Hofer, a political analyst and former editor at the newsmagazine Profil. "Just three years ago the right wing was nowhere. But the last government gave them new life. This was the largest and most dramatic protest vote [since the Second World...
...absence of a clear winner, coalition talks to form a government are expected to drag on for months. Both big mainstream parties have vowed that they will not form a coalition with the far right, but given the strength of those parties' showing, and the weakness of Austria's other small parties, including the Greens, commentators are not ruling anything out. For his part, Haider said after the vote that the two far-right parties should consider papering over their differences and joining forces. "Voters now expect us to do something for Austria," he said. "They do not want...
...opposition. The last time that the Freedom Party was included in a governing coalition, its support crumbled. Over the past two years in pure opposition, by contrast, they have ridden from success to success. Strache has said he would like to be Chancellor some day. Unless Austria's mainstream parties can find a way to share power and work together in a more effective and responsive way, he may eventually get his wish...