Revealed: One in Three Europeans Now Votes Anti-establishment

THE GUARDIAN – EUROPE: Exclusive: analysis of results in 31 countries last year found 32% of votes were cast for parties that are populist, far-left or far-right

Italy’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni addressing an election rally in Ancona in August 2022. Composite: Guardian Design/AP
Almost one-third of Europeans now vote for populist, far-right or far-left parties, research shows, with wide support for anti-establishment politics surging across the continent in an increasingly problematic challenge to the mainstream.

Analysis by more than 100 political scientists across 31 countries found that in national elections last year a record 32% of European voters cast their ballots for anti-establishment parties, compared with 20% in the early 2000s and 12% in the early 1990s.

The research, led by Matthijs Rooduijn, a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam, and shared exclusively with the Guardian, also found that about half of anti-establishment voters support far-right parties – and this is the vote share that is increasing most rapidly. » | Jon Henley, Europe correspondent | Thursday, September 21, 2023

A perfect storm brewing’: how populists could challenge Europe this autumn: Anti-establishment parties look likely to play a significant role in elections in Slovakia, Poland and the Netherlands »

Why Hate Is Fuelling Politics

Hate is fuelling politics in America and Britain, as arguments over racial justice, transgender rights

Yves Saint Laurent's Pierre Bergé on Fashion, Art and Politics – BBC Newsnight

The former lover of the late Yves Saint Laurent has decided to sell the most priceless library in private hands - estimated to be worth up to £30 million. Newsnight's culture correspondent Stephen Smith reports.

The late Pierre Bergé »

Keep Religion Out of Public Policy
WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES: I would not want to live under Sharia law in America, a real threat only in the eyes of America’s lunatic fringe. I also would not want to live under Roman Catholic Canon Law, which is becoming an increasing threat.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of religion. What Jefferson referred to as the “wall of separation between church and state” is intended to protect the practice of religion from interference by the state, as well as to protect citizens from religious interference. Some conservatives today are misinterpreting that principle as providing freedom for the Catholic Church and evangelical Christians to impose their religious teachings on America’s secular society.

What qualifies the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church to determine what should be covered in our health insurance policies? All sacred religious institutions are explicitly and appropriately exempted from the provisions of the health care policy under debate. However, so-called “Catholic Charities” is an organization two-thirds of whose “good works” are funded by tax dollars. Catholic hospitals and colleges are also largely supported by public money. Should all their employees be denied access to comprehensive health care coverage because of that church’s religious doctrine? » | Rev. David Weissbard | Sunday, February 26, 2012

French Minister at Centre of Funding Scandal Resigns
THE TELEGRAPH: Eric Woerth, the minister at the heart of the French political funding scandal announced he would step down as treasurer of Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party to quell suggestions of a conflict of interest.

Mr Woerth had been under pressure to drop the treasurer and party fund-raiser post following allegations over campaign donations from L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

He was accused of a conflict of interest as Mrs Bettencourt, 87, employed his wife to help manage her fortune and had failed to declare Swiss bank accounts while Mr Woerth was budget minister and on a mission to fight tax fraud.

A finance ministry report released on Sunday cleared Mr Woerth of having intervened to protect Mrs Bettencourt from tax scrutiny while he was budget minister.

However, question marks remain over allegations by Mrs Bettencourt's former accountant that Mr Woerth accepted 150,000 euros (£125,000) in illegal cash donations from France's richest woman. >>> Henry Samuel in Paris | Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Political Risk Looms for Merkel: Greece Aid Promise Spurs Grumbling Ahead of Key State Vote for Ruling Coalition
Jürgen Rüttgers, conservative premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, campaigns ahead of a vote that will test Germany's ruling center-right alliance. Photograph: The Wall Street Journal
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: BERLIN—Europe's ever-louder promises of help for Greece may have calmed financial markets for now, but they pose a problem for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces growing criticism at home as her resistance to a Greek bailout softens.

Ms. Merkel's center-right coalition will be tested in crucial regional elections on May 9 that could wipe out its thin majority in Germany's upper house of parliament, making it harder for the government to pass its major economic policies into law.

Loaning taxpayer money to Greece at a time when German authorities are strapped for cash to maintain schools and roads at home could potentially add to broader voter dissatisfaction with the performance of the ruling coalition, political analysts say.

So far the election campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, has centered on domestic issues including jobs, education and the appeal and flaws of local candidates. Opinion pollsters say Greece isn't playing a major role. But the center-right, which is lagging in polls, can't afford extra controversy, analysts say.

"If Greece is bailed out shortly before the election, it could lead to an awkward debate for Merkel, with voters questioning why there's money for Greece but not for them," says Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University.

Ms. Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats and their junior coalition partners, the pro-business Free Democrats, who hold a governing majority in North Rhine-Westphalia, are lagging in opinion polls, which show them with about 45% of the vote. >>> Markus Walker | Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Io sono il Signore, tuo Dio. Non avrai altri dèi di fronte a me.
Silvio Berlusconi's Lawyers: Italian PM Is Above the Law
THE TELEGAPH: Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers said he should be considered above the law, as Italy's highest court deliberated on whether legislation giving him immunity from prosecution is unconstitutional.

Mr Berlusconi's duties as prime minister distinguished him from ordinary Italians, his legal team insisted, using a justification which opposition politicians branded "Orwellian".

"The prime minister ... should be considered the 'first above equals'," said one of his lawyers, Gaetano Pecorella, putting a new twist on the more familiar Latin term primus inter pares, or "first among equals".

Mr Berlusconi, 73, has repeatedly complained of being unfairly hounded by "Left-wing" magistrates who he claims have waged a politically motivated campaign against him since he first entered politics 15 years ago.

An opposition MP, Massimo Donadi, of the Italy of Values party, said the argument recalled George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, in which the power-corrupted pigs asserted that "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Sócrates Wins Second Term in Portugal
FINANCIAL TIMES: José Sócrates, Portugal’s Socialist prime minister, was re-elected to a second term in the general election on Sunday, but his centre-left party lost its overall majority in parliament.

Mr Sócrates is expected to form a minority government and seek support for a government programme and the 2010 budget with parties to both the left and right.

However, his failure to win a comfortable majority raised the prospect of political instability and a weak government that could fall before completing a four-year term.

Only two minority administrations have survived a full term since Portugal returned to democracy in 1974. Before Mr Sócrates’ election in May 2005, the country had three governments in three years.

The Socialists won 37 per cent of the vote, down from 45 per cent in the previous election in February 2005. The centre-right Social Democrats (PSD), the main opposition party, polled 29 per cent, roughly equal to their previous result.

The Socialists’ clear win was a significant personal victory for Mr Sócrates, 52, whose popularity had been damaged by economic recession, scandal and unpopular reforms. >>> Peter Wise in Lisbon | Sunday, September 27, 2009

Related:
Smoke ban PM lights up on plane >>> Graham Keeley, The Guardian | Friday, May 16, 2009

Indian MPs Grow Richer — But the Poor Still Survive on £1.30 a Day
Lal Krishna Advani. Photo courtesy of TimesOnline
TIMESONLINE: Indian MPs running in this year’s election have become almost 300 per cent richer on average since the last poll in 2004, and one is more than 90 times wealthier, according to the first detailed study of their financial assets.

The report by National Election Watch, a coalition of non-government organisations, proves for the first time what many had long suspected — that MPs have enriched themselves in office while life has remained a struggle for the 880 million Indians surviving on less than $2 (£1.30) a day.

Under a Supreme Court ruling in 2003, all election candidates must disclose their assets, educational qualifications and any criminal background.

The report takes the assets declared by 300 MPs running in this year’s month-long election, which ends tomorrow, and compares them with their declarations in 2004. It shows that 14 MPs disclosed a tenfold increase in their wealth over the past five years. Thirty, including a Cabinet minister, declared a fivefold increase and 175 reported a rise of more than 100 per cent.

“Politics has become a huge money-making business,” said Trilochan Sastry, the Dean of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, who led the study. Most members of the 543-seat Parliament — 128 of whom face criminal charges — had under- reported their wealth, he added. >>> Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent | Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Austrian Social Democrats Asked to Form a Government
ASSOCIATED PRESS: VIENNA, Austria — The biggest winner in Austria's elections got the president's approval Wednesday to begin forming a coalition government that they have promised will exclude the country's powerful far-right parties.

But it remains to be seen if the center-left Social Democrats' resistance to the right will work in the winning party's favor.

The Social Democrats won the most votes in parliamentary elections Sept. 28, with 29.3 percent. Wednesday, President Heinz Fischer asked the party's leader, Werner Faymann, to try to form what Fischer called the "decisive" government the country needs.

Complicating Faymann's task is the resounding success of the two far-right parties — the Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria, which took third and fourth place in the election. Their combined total of 28.2 percent puts them nearly on an equal footing with the Social Democrats — and has made them difficult to ignore.

Faymann has rejected forming a coalition with either far-right party. He stuck by that stance Wednesday but acknowledged it could hamper his efforts to forge a government.

"It's a tactical drawback but I believe it's an advantage for the country," he said.

Animosity between the rightist leaders made it appear unlikely at first that they would consider collaborating with each other. But the two men met Wednesday in an apparently successful attempt to warm relations.

"It was a get-together of winners," Joerg Haider, leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria, said in a statement afterward.

The atmosphere in the meeting was positive and constructive, the statement said. It also said the parties do not "reject taking responsibility for creating a new government." Austrian Social Democrats Asked to Form a Government >>> By Veronika Oleksyn | October 8, 2008

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I'm Not a Nazi and I Like Kebabs, Says FPÖ Leader Strache
WIENER ZEITUNG: Colin Freeman, Chief Foreign Correspondent of British quality newspaper Sunday Telegraph, has spoken with Heinz-Christian Strache, the FPÖ leader whose party did well in Austria's September 28 general election, about Europe's "Islamisation" and misinterpretations of Nazi gestures.



Ever since the general election, they have been subjects of fierce debate in the country's beer-cellers and cafes. When does raising three fingers in the air make you a fascist - and when does it just mean "three beers please?"



Ask Strache, whose far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) won close to a shocking 20 per cent of the vote, and he rolls his eyes in a way that looks at once weary and slightly scary. The photo in which he is shown holding up three fingers does not, he insists, depict a neo-Nazi gesture - that's just a "misinterpretation" put about by liberals.



Lest I prove to be one of the numerous people who are sceptical about his denial, he invites me to try it myself.



"Go on, imagine that you are in a bar, where the music is very loud and where the bartender can't hear your voice," he says. "What sign do you make if you want to order three beers?"



Sure enough, I raise my hand and find it outstretched in a very similar fashion to how Strache does it. "You see?" he grins, warming to his theme. "Now imagine you are holding your arm out for a taxi in the street. Does that make you look like you're raising your arm like Hitler?"



Whatever the truth of the matter, it isn't the only thing on which Strache claims that people have got the wrong end of the stick about recently. When other photographs surfaced of him wearing army fatigues and clutching a gun, he claimed that it wasn't a neo-Nazi training camp as alleged, but just a day out paintballing.



And when it was alleged that some of his fellow "paintballers" were known extremists, he claimed that they were old acquintances with whom he no longer associated.



And, by the way, he tells me, that three-fingered salute, it's not a neo-Nazi thing at all but a secret signal that people used in the former East Germany to imply that they were against Communism. Why he didn't just say that in the first place hasn't been explained.



Yet for all that, Strache asks for benefit of the doubt a lot, and it seems as though a large percentage of the Austrian public is willing to give it to him. Campaigning on the basis of hardline anti-immigration and anti-EU themes, his Freedom Party polled 18 per cent of the parliamentary vote, while the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), a splinter of the Freedom Party run by Strache's one-time mentor Jörg Haider, picked up a further 11 per cent.



Combined, it means that nearly one-third of Austrian voters now back extremist parties, making them contenders for a major role in government and prompting fears of a far-right revival across Europe.


Adding to the discomfiture of more-liberal Austrian politicians is that most of the far-right's votes have come at the expense of the mainstream Social Democrats and conservative People's Parties, whose ruling coalition is seen as having ignored rising discontent over immigration and crime - and what many Austrians say is a glaring link between the two.



There is no fear of such politically-correct coyness in Strache's case. He wants wayward foreigners who scrounge from Austria's generous benefits system deported and advocates a ban on the building of all mosques to prevent the continuaton of alleged creeping Islamisation. He also claims that Austria's gentle, law-abiding children are being robbed, beaten up and sexually harassed by gangs of rapacious immigrants from Turkey and elsewhere.



"In some school classes, just two out of 30 children are Austrian, and they are confronted with racism every day," he says. "It is inverse racism. Austrian youths are beaten up in discos." I'm Not a Nazi and I Like Kebabs, Says FPÖ Leader Strache >>> | October 7, 2008

IRISH TIMES:
Social Democrats Asked to Lead Austrian Coalition >>> | October 8, 2008

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A Note to The Telegraph: There Is Nothing Inherently ‘Racist’ or ‘Nazi’ about Wanting to Protect One’s Own Country and Culture from the Onslaught of Islam!
Photo of Heinz Christian Strache courtesy of Google Images
Watch Telegraph video: Austria’s Heinz Christian Strache >>>
THE TELEGRAPH: If ever there was an acceptable face of the Far Right in Europe, Mario Miksch is it.

Clad in a grey blazer, white shirt and tie, the bespectacled 60-year-old estate agent looks the picture of respectability as he sips white wine in a smart Vienna watering hole.

Last week, though, he helped reveal a new, darker side to Viennese cafe society as he joined millions of other well-to-do Austrians in voting for the Freedom Party of Heinz-Christian Strache - the rising star of Austria's extreme Right.

"I voted for him to stop immigrants taking over the social welfare system that serves this country so well," said Mr Miksch, until now a supporter of Austria's centre-left Social Democrats.

"Many other middle class people did too, although most don't admit. It's not that he's a Nazi though, and nor am I. I have no problems with people who integrate well."

When it comes to voting for Mr Strache, however, the phrase "I'm not a racist but..." becomes a much more heavily qualified than normal.

The perma-tanned former dental technician has run one of the unabashedly xenophobic and anti-Islamic campaigns ever seen in a European election, based mainly on dire warnings that the land of the Sound of Music is becoming the land of the sound of mosques.

He has demanded new restrictions on Austria's predominantly Turkish immigrant community, described women in Islamic dress as "female ninjas", and urged a ban on the building of minarets to prevent Muslims turning "Vienna into Istanbul."

Mr Strache insists he is nothing but a patriot and claims some of his best friends are Turkish; but his critics claim that some of his other friends have been neo-fascists, including three Neo-Nazis with whom he was allegedly photographed with in the late 1980s.

Yet while opponents say he is little more than a bovver-boy in a suit, Mr Strache's party polled 18 per cent in last Sunday's parliamentary elections, mainly at the expense of the mainstream Social Democrats and Conservatives, whose ruling coalition is seen to have ignored rising concerns about immigration. What Is It about Austria? Why the Birthplace of Hitler Has Just Voted for the Far-Right >>> By Colin Freeman in Vienna | October 4, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
I'm Not a Nazi, and I Like Kebabs, Says Far Right Leader Heinz-Christian Strache: Ever since last week's Austrian parliamentary elections, it has been a subject of fierce debate in the country's beerkellers and cafes. When does raising three fingers in the air make you a fascist - and when does it just mean "three beers please?" >>> By Colin Freeman in Vienna | October 4, 2008

In Pictures:
The Rise of Austria’s Far Right >>>

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Europe’s Far-Right Revival Isn’t Nazism
LA TIMES: Much of the support for the right-wing parties springs from a resentment of long-ruling political elites.

Two far-right parties, the Austrian Freedom Party and the Movement for Austria's Future, managed to win 29% of the vote in Sunday's general elections in Austria. This is double what they got in the elections of 2006.

Both parties share the same attitudes toward immigrants, especially Muslims, and the European Union: a mixture of fear and loathing. Because the leaders of the two parties, Heinz-Christian Strache and Jorg Haider, can't stand each other, there is little chance of a far-right coalition actually taking power. Nonetheless, this is Adolf Hitler's native land, where Jews were once forced to scrub the streets of Vienna with toothbrushes before being deported and killed, so the result is disturbing. The question is: How disturbing?

Twenty-nine percent is about 15% more than populist right-wing parties usually get even in very good (for them) years in other European countries. Strache, leader of the Freedom Party, wants the government to create a new ministry to manage the deportation of immigrants. Muslims are openly disparaged by leaders of both parties. Haider once praised the employment practices of Hitler's Third Reich. Inevitably, the new rightists bring back memories of storm troopers and race laws.

Yet to see the rise of the Austrian right as a revival of Nazism would be a mistake. For one thing, neither party is advocating violence, even if some of their rhetoric might inspire it. For another, it seems to me that voters backing these far-right parties may be motivated less by ideology than by anxieties and resentments that are felt in many European countries, including ones with no Nazi tradition, such as the Netherlands and Denmark.

In Denmark, the hard-right Danish People's Party is the third-largest party in the country, with 25 parliamentary seats. Dutch populists such as Rita Verdonk, or Geert Wilders, who is driven by a paranoid fear of "Islamization," are putting the traditional political elites -- a combination of liberals, social democrats and Christian democrats -- under severe pressure.

And this is precisely the point. The biggest resentment among supporters of the right-wing parties in Europe these days is reserved not so much for immigrants as for political elites that, in the opinion of many, have been governing for too long in cozy coalitions, which appear to exist chiefly to protect vested interests. In Austria, even liberals admit that an endless succession of social democrat and Christian democrat governments has clogged the arteries of the political system. It has been difficult for smaller parties to penetrate what is seen as a bastion of political privilege. The same is true in the Netherlands, which has been governed for decades by the same middle-of-the-road parties, led by benevolent but rather paternalistic figures whose views about multiculturalism, tolerance and Europe were, until recently, rarely challenged. Europe’s Far-Right Revival Isn’t Nazism >>> By Ian Buruma | October 3, 2008

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Islam: ”The Fascism of the Twenty-first Century” – HC Strache
Photo courtesy of Google Images
THE GUARDIAN: • Strache seen as further to right than mentor Haider 
• Weakened main party faces coalition dilemma

He has been filmed in forests, carrying arms and wearing paramilitary fatigues in the company of banned German neo-Nazis. Islam, he says, is "the fascism of the 21st century". He was photographed apparently giving a three-fingered neo-Nazi salute - though he says he was ordering three beers.

He mocks gay people; wants a ministry for the deportation of immigrants; says "Vienna must not become Istanbul"; hopes to repeal laws banning Nazi revivalism, and is pushing for a constitutional ban on the building of minarets. Heinz-Christian Strache, a former dental technician, is the new star of Austrian politics and the new poster boy of Europe's extreme right.

"I was never a neo-Nazi, and never will be," Strache has insisted. But when he sued the Vienna news weekly Profil for defamation, the court ruled that Strache could fairly be said to display "an affinity to national-socialist thinking".

Strache, 39, led his Freedom party to 18% of the vote in an early general election on Sunday. His former boss and mentor-turned-rival, Jörg Haider, single-handedly steered his breakaway far-right Movement for Austria's Future to 11% - meaning that almost one in three Austrians who voted opted for the extreme right.

"A unique case among the western democracies," said Profil yesterday as Viennese liberals reeled from the results of an election that put the far right comfortably ahead of the mainstream conservatives of the Austrian People's party and neck-and-neck with the Social Democrats, who narrowly won the election.

It will be very difficult for any party to muster a parliamentary majority. The only options are for the Social Democrats to invite Strache into government, or to form another "grand coalition" with the Christian Democrats. Such a coalition collapsed in June after 18 months in office, and another attempt could fire a bigger protest vote for Strache next time. Austria in Crisis as Far Right Win 29% of Vote >>> By Ian Traynor, Europe editor | September 30, 2008

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The Jolt that Europe Needed?: Heinz Christian Strache Claims Victory in Austria
Photo of Heinz Christian Strache courtesy of Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Google Images (Austria)
THE INDEPENDENT: He has been linked to neo-Nazi groups, says that women in Islamic dress are "female ninjas" and wants to take Austria out of the EU. But after his huge gains in yesterday's general election, the far-right leader Heinz-Christian Strache was today bidding to become his country's next Chancellor.

The extreme-right romped home with a record 29 per cent of the vote in Sunday's Austrian poll, inflicting disaster on the country's two main established parties, the Social Democrats and centre-right People's Party, whose grand coalition government collapsed earlier this year due to infighting.

In their worst performance since 1945, the Social Democrats secured 30 percent of the vote and their conservative rivals a mere 25 percent. With Austria now in political turmoil, the two parties were yesterday facing the unwelcome choices of forming another highly unpopular grand coalition or joining forces with the far right.

The xenophobic Freedom Party, presided over by 39-year-old Strache, won 18 percent of the far right vote with the remainder going to veteran right winger Jörg Haider's Alliance for the Future of Austria. It was the Austrian far right's best performance since the Second World War.

Yesterday Strache, a dental technician who sports a permanent tan, claimed to be the true victor in the election. "We are the winners of election night," he told Austrian television. Demanding a role in any future Austrian government, he also announced that he was interested in becoming the country's next Chancellor. Far-Right's Strache Claims Austria Victory >>> By Tony Paterson in Berlin | September 29, 2008

FINANCIAL TIMES:
Austria Sees Return of Extreme Right >>> By Eric Frey in Vienna and Haig Simonian in Zurich | September 29, 2008

TIMESONLINE:
Muslim Graves Desecrated as Austria Swings to the Right: Police are blaming far-Right extremists for desecrating a Muslim cemetery in Austria, in the same weekend that the political parties of the far-Right made huge gains in the country's general election.
More than 90 graves were severely damaged at the cemetery in Traun, near Linz, some time between Friday night and this morning, in what police believe was an organised action.

The offenders sprayed Jewish symbols such as the Star of David over some of the graves, but detectives believe that this may have been a bid to disguise the motives of extremists driven by a hatred of Muslim immigrants. >>> Bojan Pancevski | September 29, 2008

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Austria Braced for Right-wing Surge
THE GUARDIAN / THE OBSERVER: The man who has inherited Jorg Haider's mantle as the figurehead of Austria's far right is expected to scoop up a fifth of the popular vote in national elections today in the latest advance for a European party campaigning on anti-immigration policies.

The dramatic rise of Heinz-Christian Strache and the once ailing Freedom Party, formerly led by Haider, has accompanied growing Austrian sentiment against foreigners, economic woes and a widespread disillusionment with the two main centrist parties.

Today's expected results will be seen as a triumph for Strache, a politician who has made a virtue of being even tougher on immigrants than his party's former leader. Polls have suggested that substantial numbers of the young and elderly, blue-collar workers and middle classes will turn out to vote for the man who strengthened his popularity through slogans such as: 'If you want an apartment, all you need is a headscarf.' Austria Braced for Right-wing Surge >>> Peter Beaumont and Michael Leidig in Vienna | Sunday September 28 2008

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Austria about to Turn Sharp Right?
DEUTSCHE WELLE: Fed up with government bickering and growing economic uncertainty, Austrian voters could hand the far right big gains in general elections on Sunday.

If opinion polls prove correct, the Austrian far-right may notch large gains in general elections on Sunday, Sept 28.

Austria's voters appear to be fed up with rising inflation (at 3.9 percent, a 15-year high), poor integration of the country's large immigrant population, and the inability of the current government to do much about either.

The combined poll numbers of Austria's two far right-parties, the Freedom Party and the Alliance for Austria's Future are hovering around 25 percent. That would represent the best draw for the Austrian far-right since 1999, when then-Freedom Party (and now Alliance) leader Jörg Haider stunned Europe by garnering 27 percent.

Such a tally might well leave Austria's neighbors aghast, but one pollster, Andreas Kirchhofer of IMAS, told news agency Reuters that Austrians may be casting their votes against their current leaders more than for the rightists.

"They are fed up with the left-right coalition," he said. "They want another kind of government, but they don't really know exactly what that should look like." Disenchanted Austrian Voters Could Turn to Far Right >>> |September 26, 2008

TIMESONLINE:
Strong Support for Strache and Haider in Austria: Heinz Christian Strache: “We must not allow our own sons to be insulted as ‘pigeaters' in our schools and our daughters to be exposed to the greedy stares and gropings of whole hordes of immigrants.” / “Homeland instead of Islam.” / “Vienna must not become Istanbul.” >>> | September 26, 2008

THE INDEPENDENT:
Austria Opens the Polls to 16-Year-Olds: Austria becomes the first country in the European Union to grant its 16-year-olds the right to vote in a general election this weekend but the move has provoked widespread controversy and criticism, even from the teenagers heading for the ballot box for the first time. >>> By Tony Paterson in Berlin | September 26, 2008

EURO NEWS:
Östereichs zwei rechte Parteien rechnen mit reichlich Zulauf: Vor der österreichischen Parlamentswahl am Sonntag dürfte bei den vielen Unbekannten nur eines sicher sein: Die beiden Parteien am rechten Rand können mit reichlich Zulauf rechnen. Schließlich wird dieser Urnengang zwei Jahre vorfristig nötig, weil die große Koalition aus ÖVP und SPÖ kläglich gescheitert ist. Gelegentliche Anmerkungen von Volkes Hand wie hier “ Nazis raus” auf ein FPÖ-Plakat geschrieben, kann man eher als Ausdruck von Hilflosigkeit werten. >>> 25. September 2008

Heinz Christian Strache: Website und Bio

Dr. Jörg Haider: Website und Lebenslauf

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Obama: Whatever the Politics Demand

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Sam Harris: Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
THE HUFFINGTON POST: Geert Wilders, conservative Dutch politician and provocateur, has become the latest projectile in the world's most important culture war: the zero-sum conflict between civil society and traditional Islam. Wilders, who lives under perpetual armed guard due to death threats, recently released a 15 minute film entitled Fitna ("strife" in Arabic) over the internet. The film has been deemed offensive because it juxtaposes images of Muslim violence with passages from the Qur'an. Given that the perpetrators of such violence regularly cite these same passages as justification for their actions, merely depicting this connection in a film would seem uncontroversial. Controversial or not, one surely would expect politicians and journalists in every free society to strenuously defend Wilders' right to make such a film. But then one would be living on another planet, a planet where people do not happily repudiate their most basic freedoms in the name of "religious sensitivity."

Witness the free world's response to Fitna: The Dutch government sought to ban the film outright, and European Union foreign ministers publicly condemned it, as did UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Dutch television refused to air Fitna unedited. When Wilders declared his intention to release the film over the internet, his U.S. web-host, Network Solutions, took his website offline.

Into the breach stepped Liveleak, a British video-sharing website, which finally aired the film on March 27th. It received over 3 million views in the first 24 hours. The next day, however, Liveleak removed Fitna from its servers, having been terrorized into self-censorship by threats to its staff. But the film had spread too far on the internet to be suppressed (and Liveleak, after taking further security measures, has since reinstated it on its site as well).

Of course, there were immediate calls for a boycott of Dutch products throughout the Muslim world. In response, Dutch corporations placed ads in countries like Indonesia, denouncing the film in self-defense. Several Muslim countries blocked YouTube and other video-sharing sites in an effort to keep Wilders' blasphemy from penetrating the minds of their citizens. There have also been isolated protests and attacks on embassies, and ubiquitous demands for Wilders' murder. In Afghanistan, women in burqas could be seen burning the Dutch flag; the Taliban carried out at least two revenge attacks on Dutch troops, resulting in five Dutch casualties; and security concerns have caused the Netherlands to close its embassy in Kabul. It must be said, however, that nothing has yet occurred to rival the ferocious response to the Danish cartoons.

Meanwhile Kurt Westergaard, one of the Danish cartoonists, threatened to sue Wilders for copyright infringement, as Wilders used his drawing of a bomb-laden Muhammad without permission. Westergaard has lived in hiding since 2006 due to death threats of his own, so the Danish Union of Journalists volunteered to file this lawsuit on his behalf. Admittedly, there is something amusing about one hunted man, unable to venture out in public for fear of being killed by religious lunatics, threatening to sue another man in the same predicament over a copyright violation. But it is understandable that Westergaard wouldn't want to be repeatedly hurled at the enemy without his consent. Westergaard is an extraordinarily courageous man whose life has been ruined both by religious fanaticism and the free world's submission to it. In February, the Danish government arrested three Muslims who seemed poised to murder him. Other Danes unfortunate enough to have been born with the name "Kurt Westergaard" have had to take steps to escape being murdered in his place. (Wilder's has since removed the cartoon from the official version of Fitna.) Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks >>> By Sam Harris

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)

View from Berlin: “The Nice Guy Doesn’t Always Make the Better President”
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The fight for the Democratic presidential nomination has turned into a clash between style and substance, write German media commentators. An editorialist at one top paper expresses serious doubts about Barack Obama's readiness for the top job.

The nice guy doesn't always make the better president, say German political commentators ahead of Tuesday's New Hampshire primary which could sound the death knell for Hillary Clinton's campaign to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Barack Obama's vague pledges of "change" may be enthralling voters in America but they are raising eyebrows among German leader writers. After eight years of George W. Bush, the last thing the US needs is another era of ideology, they say -- cool-headed, pragmatic, boring policymaking is required, which makes Clinton more suitable for the job than Obama. Obama Is 'Intangible, Elastic, Hollow' >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)