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 >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
