About a year ago I started writing my Master thesis about the Austrian political landscape. More specifically I looked at the now dissolved populist government between the Conservative Party and the Austrian Freedom Party and how they became so powerful again. I looked at a time frame between 1999 and 2017, since in 1999 the same coalition was voted into parliament. I analysed campaign material from the Freedom Party to dissect their ideas and concepts, however, also Sebastian Kurz and his politics were in the centre of analysis.
Currently, Austrian news is full of the political crisis that is happening in Austria. After a corruption scandal the populist vice chancellor Strache resigned from all his positions, and almost all ministers from the Freedom Party were fired, including the most controversial character Herbert Kickl, known for his extremist views. Finally, something is happening and all these people are shown where the door is. A party that asks for controlled media, that practices openly racism, that is against same sex marriage, has been in parliament way too long together with Kurz who supports similar concepts just sold differently.
However, our chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, now plays as if he always knew, as if he is the victim of working together with the Freedom Party. He knew exactly what he was doing and now he got presented with the consequences. Kurz is the real danger for Austrian politics since he shifted the Conservative Party massively to the right and his views are the same as the one of a right-wing populist, simply that he uses different wording. Kurz’ wording orignates from Austro Fascism, which to the media does not sound as bad as the Nazi language used by the Austrian Freedom Party, even though both support the same concepts.
Kurz has made populism publicly acceptable again. He has driven the country against the wall into a political crisis with his choice of forming a coalition with the Freedom Party. Now it blew all up in his face.
Go vote on Sunday!
Austrians, go vote for the next parliamentary elections in Austria!
The Monikart Studio 