Jörg Haider

[Little Linguist]

Today, the leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), Jörg Haider, died in a car crash. Ironically, he died in the tragic car accident a mere 13 days after his party received 10.7% of the Austrian vote. They had gained 14 seats, one more than the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Both parties together received over 28% of the vote.

You must realize that both the BZÖ and the FPÖ are what are termed national-liberal, pan-German parties. To be more specific, they are what many call 'national-conservative' or 'populist'. Others have called them 'far right.'

In any case I suppose it is quite a coincidence that the leader of the recent BZÖ died in such a way after receiving such impressive results. It makes one wonder what the future of the party will be after his loss.

[Metamorphosis]

It was very interesting to see parties who's entire platform is pretty much only based on anti-immigration do so well.

[Antisocial one]

Originally Posted by Little Linguist

Today, the leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), Jörg Haider, died in a car crash. Ironically, he died in the tragic car accident a mere 13 days after his party received 10.7% of the Austrian vote. They had gained 14 seats, one more than the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Both parties together received over 28% of the vote.

You must realize that both the BZÖ and the FPÖ are what are termed national-liberal, pan-German parties. To be more specific, they are what many call 'national-conservative' or 'populist'. Others have called them 'far right.'

In any case I suppose it is quite a coincidence that the leader of the recent BZÖ died in such a way after receiving such impressive results. It makes one wonder what the future of the party will be after his loss.

Never liked the guy.


But "his time" has come in the very odd moment.

[lowtech redneck]

Originally Posted by Antisocial one

Never liked the guy.

I never liked him either, but I found the European reaction to him to be excessive and highly hypocritical-from my perspective, he was no worse than the eurocommunist parties that are often included as junior partners in government. Besides, the attempted political boycott set a bad precedent, so I was happy when it failed.

It will be interesting (seeing as I don't live there) to see what affect this will have on the "far-right" (such parties often have highly statist economic policies) in Austria; will the two parties reunite, or will the absence of a charismatic leader cause a decline in popularity, particularly in Carinthia?

[Little Linguist]

It will definitely be interesting to see the effect.

I think it should also be a call to the mainstream parties to become more consistent with their policies and take a tougher stance on problems or else more and more of the traditional middle-class, middle-of-the-road folks will turn to more extreme solutions, either left or right.

We will have to wait and see.