Europe’s
blurred lines between populism, mainstream
The
far-right tried to play the anti-establishment card. But that’s no
longer appropriate.
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG 12/5/16, 7:09 PM CET Updated 12/5/16, 11:02 PM CET
For once, Austria
did the right thing. The country of Waldheim and Haider (not to
mention you know who) rejected right-wing populism to elect a
liberal, pro-European “establishment” president, prompting relief
from Vilnius to Valletta.
Media across Europe
heralded the vote as a sign of hope for Europe’s battered political
elite. Could the populist tide be turning?
In fact, the
Austrian vote no more represents an endorsement of traditional
establishment ideals than the Italian referendum signals their
rejection.
If anything, the two
votes illustrate how the increasingly blurred lines between populism
and mainstream across much of Europe are shaking the political
landscape.
The Italian
decision, for example, has been seen as the mirror image of the
Austrian result: the rejection of an establishment prime minister in
favor of populists.
Yet here, the
populists, who normally sell themselves as radical reformers, were
cast in the traditional establishment role as defenders of the status
quo.
Prime Minister
Matteo Renzi’s proposed constitutional reform would have meant a
radical departure from Italy’s post-war democratic norms. Seen in
that light, the No vote suggests above all that Italians are
resistant to radical change, even at the cost of political
instability.
Put another way, the
resignation of a prime minister in a country that has had 64
governments is less of a shock than a constitutional reform that
would have rewritten the rules of Italian democracy.
Van
der Bellen tried to soften his image during the campaign to attract
more mainstream voters.
That also helps
explain why financial markets confounded predictions of doom and
gloom in the wake of the vote. For better or worse, Italian democracy
is no more dysfunctional today than it was before the vote.
Austria represents
an even clearer example of Europe’s upside-down politics.
Consider Alexander
Van der Bellen, Austria’s president-elect. A former Green leader
whose party never garnered more than 11 percent of the vote under his
stewardship, Van der Bellen tried to soften his image during the
campaign to attract more mainstream voters. He declared himself an
independent and even donned Tracht, or traditional Alpine garb, a
favorite tactic of establishment conservatives, but anathema to those
on the Left.
Van der Bellen’s
transformation into an establishment figure was all the more
surprising given that he made his career as a politician in the
Catholic country attacking mainstream positions on everything from
conscription to gay marriage.
Though Van der
Bellen’s opponent, Norbert Hofer, was on the opposite side of those
debates, representing the status quo, he tried to sell himself as as
the candidate running against what he called “the system.”
His Freedom Party
typically defines “the system” as the centrist Social Democrats
and the Austrian People’s Party, which together have dominated the
country’s politics since the war.
But Hofer’s loss
to Van der Bellen shows that it’s increasingly difficult for his
right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) to play the anti-establishment card.
While the party cultivates an upstart image, regularly lashing out at
the Haute-Volée, it has been a fixture in Austria’s political
scene since the 1950s.
The FPÖ has
governed at the national level as the junior coalition party twice
over the past 30 years and has led regional and municipal
governments. It currently has representatives in all nine of
Austria’s provincial assemblies as well as in the European
Parliament.
In contrast,
Austria’s Greens have never been part of a federal government. The
party rarely polls at over 12 percent, about one-third of the FPÖ’s
support.
There’s no
question that Van der Bellen’s metamorphosis, though more form than
substance, helped him prevail. He won the backing of both Austria’s
center-left chancellor and the center-right vice chancellor. Their
own candidates failed to make into the runoff.
As a result, many
Austrians, like their southern neighbors, believed they were voting
for the status quo. In Van der Bellen, they’ve elected a
grandfatherly figure who’s unlikely to threaten the country’s
reputation abroad.
For many Austrians,
the isolation and criticism the country faced, both during the
Waldheim years and after Haider’s FPÖ joined the government in
2000, remains a trauma they would rather not repeat.
And yet to conclude
that the FPÖ, with its nativist, anti-immigrant message, has lost
momentum would be a mistake. The party currently leads national polls
with about 34 percent, well ahead of the Social Democrats. With voter
frustration with the governing grand coalition showing no sign of
waning, there’s a fair chance Austria’s next chancellor will be
from the FPÖ.
By then, it will
have become clear that parties like the FPÖ don’t threaten the
establishment, but rather are the establishment.
Authors:
Matthew Karnitschnig
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