The Far Right Is Now in Power in Austria
Source: The Nation
The new governing coalition includes the Freedom Party, which has deep roots in the country’s Nazi past.
Europe’s newest right-wing government took office on December 18, this time in Austria. The two parties that form the government are the Freedom Party and the People’s Party. During the fall campaign, they vilified refugees, attacked Vienna (the country’s liberal big-city capital), and—less loudly—promised major tax cuts for the rich. This won them a combined 57.5 percent of the vote. Austria thus appears to be the newest member in the Central European club of “illiberal democracy,” as Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán proudly calls it. But the Austrian situation is—for those of us who prefer our democracy liberal—both scarier and less scary than that of its neighbors.