Source: Foreign Policy
by Paul Hockenos
“The right-wing wave surging through Europe picked up size and speed on Sept. 29 as Austria’s hard-right Freedom Party won the country’s general election. Following on the heels of far-right victories in eastern Germany and the Netherlands earlier this year, Austria joins the likes of Italy, Slovakia, Croatia, and Hungary as European Union members where extreme rightist parties have — armed with unabashedly illiberal, authoritarian agendas — rendered the political establishment impotent. Openly calling for a Volkskanzler (people’s chancellor) to lead the country — just one piece of Nazi lingo that party head Herbert Kickl regularly employs — the Freedom Party took 29 percent of the vote …. The Freedom Party’s record result though is not enough to form a government on its own. … But the Freedom Party is now front and center in Austrian political life.” (10/02/24)