Austria: Election to be run again (far right almost got in last time!)

[TheNewStatesman]

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36681475

Remember that Austrian election where the far right almost got in?

Well, it's going to be run again. On the grounds of irregularities in the voting process.

Well... if they do manage it this time, at least the UK won't be the most unpopular country in Europe, let's put it that way.... But Christ almighty, what times we are living in!

Huge event. Postal votes, the usual way they carry out tricks.

In a fair election, the right will probably win and the EU will be under even more pressure as they said they don't want to deal with that Austrian party.

This is potentially HUGE.

Yes, it does look like the election was rigged to stop the Norbert Hofer winning.

The question is how this will influence the next run. With voting fraud and the Brexit triumph, the Freedom Party are surely nailed on to win.

The voter fraud was huge in that election. Something on a scale not seen in the West in a very long time.

Oh dear God, no! :-(

One town had 147% turnout, and whereas Hofer was leading before postal ballots were counting, the postal ballots somehow managed to swing 63% for his opponent, which strongly suggests fraud.

So, will just the last part of the election between the two main candidates be repeated, or the whole process, bringing back thenother main parties into the running?

the entire election has got to be reheld across the entire country. All parties can stand, but unless it is rigged, it looks like the right will win in a fair election. It was quite incredible that the Green one at all the first time around. String were possibly pulled by bigwigs and all sorts the first time.

Very bad news for the EU political class. They are holding on as best they can. Bigwigs may not be able to hold their house of cards together.

"The news that Austria’s highest court is ordering a re-run of May’s presidential election could not have come at a worse time for Brussels.

A week after Brexit, as all of core Europe frets over the possibility that the UK vote will empower populist parties across the continent, this ruling hands another grand stage to those peddling the intoxicating narratives of nationalism and anti-austerity."
...
Mr Hofer now stands in the vanguard of populist movements which over the next six months are hoping to do nothing less than rock the political foundations of a Europe that is still reeling from the hammer blow of last week’s Brexit vote.

A victory for Mr Hofer in September would lead into a referendum in Italy in October where the centrist figure of Matteo Renzi has staked his prime ministership on winning support for governance and constitutional reforms.

If he loses and resigns it would be a huge blow for centrism, and the portents do not look good. A new Demos poll for La Repubblica shows the Eurosceptic Five Start Movement would win an Italian general election tomorrow, with Mr Renzi’s current approval rating at just 40% - a 34 point slump from its 74% peak in June 2014.

That is not to mention a referendum planned for October in Hungary by Viktor Orban, the anti-immigration prime minister, who wants to deliver a sharp poke in the eye to Brussels with his foregone conclusion rejecting mandatory immigration quotas."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/01/austrias-presidential-election-re-run-could-not-come-at-a-worse/

Establishments are being challenged all across Europe and the bankers may not be able to hold their edifice together.

Claig, does it not perturb you at all that far right/Nazi (in all but name) /fascist parties are gaining ground? What's your opinion of far right politics across Europe?

They are populists not Nazis. The left wing Establishment and media call them Nazis in order to use Project Fear to try and get people to vote against the populists and vote for the Austrian Green, as they pretended people did in that election. They challenged it and now it has to be entirely rerun.

The rise of the populists is the outcome of failure and even subtle anti-democratic possible rigging by establishments that in reality serve bankers rather than the people, and populists fill the void and are increasing their appeal to the people. It is the inevitable result of democracy and the lack of democracy which did exist, the failure of the elites to listen to the people.

Brexit is the same and Trump is the same. It is happening everywhere because the elites did not listen to the people.

Here is a Guardian article that gets close to explaining what is happening. The populists challenge the "rigged system" as Trump calls it, the system that the political class serve and that is run by the banks, the system that lectures the people instead of listening to them.

"Why are we surprised by every populist politician? Voting for them can be a rational choice
Commentators perplexed at the inconsistencies of Donald Trump are missing the point. Populist leaders are defined more by their style than their ideology

For at least the last 20 years, democracies around the world have been regularly subject to a mounting series of populist insurgencies. From France to Venezuela, sharp-elbowed political actors from both the left and the right have railed against elites, flouted the table manners of liberal politics, and are increasingly meeting with electoral success.

But it seems that every time this happens, it takes commentators by surprise. Witness the worldwide reaction to the rise of Donald Trump. First came denial, with even empirical journalists resisting what polling is telling them.

Now liberal journalists are in shock – for mainline conservatives it’s more like grief –as Trump continues to upend the US’s political order.

For Benjamin Moffitt, the Australian author of the new book, The Global Rise of Populism, this recurrent surprise is not only puzzling but worrying. In each country where it happens, “I think it always brings about some denial. People always see populism as just a rabble, or a problem with democracy. People want to see it as an aberration. Populism is never supposed to happen.”

He thinks it’s much more prudent to see it as a baseline feature of contemporary, mediated democracy. In the future, we should expect only more of it.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/13/why-are-we-surprised-by-every-populist-politician-voting-for-them-can-be-a-rational-choice

Populists are not left or right, they combine both because their key quality is "common sense" which is why they are so successful against the elites and their political class which rely on "experts" and "spin".

Brexit was the biggest example of this populist revolution we have yet seen; Trump will be the next. The people used their "common sense" and defied the "experts", the bigwigs, the IMF, the bankers, the servants, the spin doctors, the teenage whizzkids etc etc and stunned the world.

The elites use threats, scares, Project Fear, and if they are about to lose, they sometimes turn to vote rigging partcularly with postal votes. The Austrian Freedom Party challenged the postal vote anomalies and now the elite have to run the election again.

As as I understand it, it's the same two candidates again - no other parties.

Oh, I didn't realise that, thanks for clarifying it, mamamea

This isn't surprising. Similar things are happening around the world. Anti-immigration sentiment being a significant reason for Brexit; Donald Trump having a very real chance at winning the election in the US; the Austrian election; the far-right minor parties winning more seats than ever before in the Australian election etc.

It's useless to blame people for being "too conservative" or "out of touch" or "racist" or whatever the case may be, and it's important to consider why people are voting for these parties. There's a huge amount of uncertainty in the global economy; there is an obvious problem with Islam; there has been a long-term, never-formally-declared war with the Middle East etc. Global hostilities can only fester for so long, and centre-left and far-left parties can only try to appease different groups (read: pussyfoot around) for so long before people start to become disillusioned by it.

I predict a full-scale global war sometime in the not-too-distant future. All of the markers are there for it.

Whilst your average wealthy middle class 'European' might like and benefit from 'multi-culturalism, its imposition on a whole population who do not always like or benefit from it causes people to become more right or left wing. The 'experiment' of enforced liberalism has failed. Let countries have their own culture and stop trying to force some European ideal onto everyone. When a country feels secure in its identity and is able to look after its indigenous population then they will be generous and inviting to guests. But we have to recognise that it is human nature to not treat all people equally and people arent wrong or bad to put themselves, their family or their country first.

"I predict a full-scale global war sometime in the not-too-distant future. All of the markers are there for it."

I agree.