In post-Brexit Europe, why Austria’s presidential re-vote matters

Austria's high court has called for a redo of the May elections, giving the far-right party another opportunity to take power. 

|
Ronald Zak/AP/File
Alexander Van der Bellen waves to his supporters in Vienna on May 23 after being elected president of Austria. The country's highest court ruled yesterday that the presidential elections must be repeated due to irregularities in the absentee vote count.

In May, Austrians waited with bated breath as the votes were counted for their presidential election. Nearly 24 hours ticked by before the results were finally announced: Alexander Van der Bellen, an economics professor and left-leaning candidate, had won.

Not long after, his opponent, Norbert Hofer, conceded defeat on Facebook. Mr. Hofer’s campaign was the first time that Austria’s Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis and Teutonic nationalists, had won nearly 50 percent of the vote. Amid a growing European shift to the right, his defeat, also meant that a European state has still never elected a far-right populist leader since Nazi Germany.

But that could change, soon.

On Friday, Austria’s highest court threw out the results of the May election, citing irregularities with ballot counting, and calling for a re-do of the vote. New elections will be held between the two men, who are now again vying for leadership, this time in a post-Brexit Europe.

Across Europe, nationalist and far-right parties have gained political traction in a way that has not been seen since World War II. Concern about refugees and national cohesion, combined with economic trends and unemployment have fueled the rise of conservatives from Hungary to the Netherlands, Italy, and Finland.

But an outright win of a presidential race for one of these parties has yet to be seen. If Hofer is elected to lead Austria, it would be a major marker in European nationalist politics. Apart from the ideological meaning of such a win, it could have tangible effects on European Union stability.

Unlike Mr. Van der Bellen, a pro-EU politician who greeted foreign journalists in English during his first speech as president-elect, Hofer has voiced support of a Brexit-style referendum in Austria, the New York Times reports. On Sunday, Hofer told the newspaper Österreich that if the European Union “evolves in the wrong direction, then for me the time would have come to say: So, now we have to ask the Austrians.”

In 1994, more than two-thirds of the country voted to join the EU. But much has changed in the continent and the country since then. Austria has seen hundreds of thousands of refugees pass through, and some 90,000 apply for asylum there. Even prior to Brexit, Austria has become skeptical of the EU bloc. In May, the Monitor’s Sara Miller Llana reported from Vienna, writing:

Today the Alpine nation is one of the most Euroskeptic countries in the EU, rivaling Cyprus for its malcontent. In the United Kingdom, which is voting next month on whether it wants to remain as part of the EU, 31 percent have a negative image of the EU, compared to 41 percent of those in Austria (and Cyprus), according to the latest Eurobarometer. 

Hofer’s leadership would add a voice among many with similar complaints about the balance of the power in the EU, like the statement issued last week by Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia for EU reforms.

In the current climate, the presidential vote in Austria could emerge as the first major test of European unity after the Brexit vote. 

Hans Rauscher, a columnist for the liberal Austrian newspaper Der Standard said that the European Union “could very well become a theme in the coming campaign,” reports The New York Times.

The election date hasn't been set, but is expected to be in September or October.

In the meantime, the Washington Post reports, that "the vacant job of president is filled in the interim by the nation’s three top parliamentarians — of which Hofer is one. That means he will assume that role, along with peers from Austria’s two main parties, starting July 8."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to In post-Brexit Europe, why Austria’s presidential re-vote matters
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2016/0702/In-post-Brexit-Europe-why-Austria-s-presidential-re-vote-matters
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe