The Social Democratic party, which has been in the Austrian government for the last 30 years, lost close to 5 percent, down from 38.1 percent in 1995 to 33.4 percent. The conservative People's Party, which has been the Social Democrats' governmental coalition partner for the last 13 years, fell to 26.9 percent, down from 28.3 percent in 1995.

Reflecting the growing polarization of politics in Austria the Greens also gained, rising from 4.8 percent in 1995 to 7.1 percent now, while the Liberal Forum fell from 5.5 percent to 2.9 percent and will not be seated in parliament.

Haider heads the government in the state of Carinthia, a post he first won in 1989, three years after becoming leader of Freedom Party. In 1991 he criticized the Austrian coalition government's employment policy, stating that Hitler's policy during the Nazi era was better. He was forced to resign his post as chief of the state government, but regained it in March 1999 with 42 percent of the votes in the state elections in Carinthia. In late September the Freedom Party won 27.5 percent of the vote in state elections in Vorarlberg, a gain of more than 9 percent from last elections.

The Freedom Party went through an internal crisis with a revolt against Haider last year and fell in opinion polls to less than 18 percent, but has come out stronger. Capitalist multimillionaire Thomas Prinzhorn topped its parliamentary slate, with downhill skiing Olympic medal winner Patrick Ortlieb as the second name.  
 

Campaign scapegoats immigrants

The Freedom Party's campaign centered on the demand to stop immigration and "put Austria first." This was especially apparent in Vienna — the capital and biggest city, where there are more immigrants than in other parts of Austria. Haider purports to speak for the "little man." His demagogy is especially directed toward the middle class and toward poor people of Austrian origin in the suburbs, who traditionally have voted on the Social Democrats.

One campaign theme was opposing the enlargement of the European Union, which Austria joined in 1995, into eastern and central Europe. Haider warns that any expansion will bring a flood of immigrants from these countries, many of which have borders with Austria, and these immigrants will take jobs from the Austrians. Haider also blames the immigrants for crime, drugs, prostitution, and the lack of housing.

While Haider is against the European Union and especially its enlargement, he favors the expansion of NATO into Eastern and central Europe and calls for Austria to join the U.S.-dominated military alliance.

Haider and his party also target the Austrian establishment as corrupt. The 13-year "grand coalition" between the Social Democrats and the People's Party, the two parties that in one form or another have governed since 1945, is a particular target for this demagogy.

Haider is promising $400 per month to Austrian women who stay at home and take care of their children; immigrant women won't get the money. Austrian pensioners are promised more money, so they "will be better off than the immigrants who live well on welfare payments." Haider also proposes a regressive flat tax of 23 percent.

Located in central Europe, Austria is one of the smaller imperialist states. Its rulers have traditionally seen Yugoslavia and the other Balkan nations as their backyard. This puts Austria's military capacity and alliances, as well as the issue of refugees from the Yugoslav wars, at the top of the political agenda.

Neither unemployment nor immigration are especially high in Austria by European standards. The current unemployment rate is 4.3 percent, and the coalition government has restricted immigration in recent years so it is close to zero. But Haider skillfully plays on the middle classes insecurity and panic over immigration and unemployment, and he does it in a specific tradition.  
 

The Austrian ultrarightist tradition

Most of the themes in Haider's demagogy and propaganda are in the Austrian Nazi tradition stemming back to Adolf Hitler, who grew up in Austria and had his first experiences in the politics of resentment there. Haider is a charismatic leader who uses his nationalist demagogy to build a movement of fascist cadres. Votes are not the main issue for him. The Freedom Party is a means to become a legitimate part of bourgeois politics in Austria to open up more space to build a movement in the streets.

Haider's parents were deeply engaged in the German Nazi party in the 1930s and '40s. Although he insists he abhors the Nazi history of genocide against the Jews, as recently as 1996 Haider attended a secret convention of former Waffen SS troops, the elite forces of the Nazi army, and lauded them as "decent people of character who stuck to their beliefs."

Haider has been treated as a pariah in politics in Austria. The coalition between the conservatives and the social democrats has sought to keep his Freedom Party out of official politics. The leader of the People's Party, Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel, has stated that he will leave the coalition with the social democrats if his party doesn't come in second in the elections.

Edmund Stoiber, leader of the conservative Christian Social Union in Bavaria, Germany, urged the People's Party in Austria to form a coalition government with the Freedom Party.

Meanwhile Alexander Van der Bellen, head of the Green Party, announced he will tour Europe to counter the "media hysteria" created by the high Freedom Party vote. Austria "was not a Nazi country before these elections and is not one after them," he stated.

Instability and polarization will certainly mark events in politics in Austria in the near future.

Carl-Erik Isacsson is a member of the Metalworkers Union.  
 
 
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