Austria's right threatened by infighting

Infighting along representatives of Austria's right are threatening to tear the right-wing parties apart.

Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the rightist Freedom Party (FP), is now trying to reassure the public that he "has never been and never will be a neo-Nazi" after photos of him wearing combat fatigues and using a gesture known as a neo-Nazi greeting were leaked to the Austrian media. Rumour has it that the photos were leaked by a rival party faction. The internal strife is a far cry from the right's heyday in Austria after the general elections in 1999 when the FP was a force to be reckoned with.

Led by firebrand populist Joerg Haider the party received 26.9 per cent of the vote and entered into a centre-right coalition with the conservative People's Party.

Now, the movement is split and engaged in an ideological struggle. The Freedom Party is still going strong, receiving 11 per cent in the October 2006 elections, but it's a far cry from past success. The Alliance for Austria's Future (BZ), which split from the FP in 2002, barely made it into parliament.

What went wrong for the right? The FP, a classic protest party, came under the tremendous strain of suddenly having to take the responsibility for government policies, which was strongly resented by the party's extreme right wing, a strong faction since the FP's foundation.

Haider left the FP and formed the BZ which took over as junior partner in the coalition. Since then the two groups have been bitter enemies as they are vying for the same potential voters, creating a unique situation in Austria, said political analyst Peter Filzmaier.

"They are fishing for the same voters," he says.

The political right in Austria faces three major problems: the positioning of the party, ideology and personal animosities.

"The right has to reposition itself, as the traditional old Nazis are literally dying out," Filzmaier says.

Within the FP, party leader Heinz-Christian Strache, a blue-eyed Haider clone, continued the party's xenophobe policies, catering to the disillusioned losers of globalization. While this pragmatic populist approach brought moderate success at the polls, it alienated the extreme right faction, leading to ideological infighting.

Personal animosities coming to the fore after being glossed over in the years of success added to the dilemma, Filzmaier said.

The power struggle between Strache and Ewald Stadler, a senior party member known for his extreme rightist ideology, took up the party's energies in the past weeks. Rumours that the photos were leaked by BZ "moles" turned soon into speculation over a revenge act by the Stadler-camp or neo-Nazis dissatisfied with party policies.

According to the conservative newspaper Die Presse, the FP had been blackmailed with photos connecting Strache with known Neo-Nazis for some time.

Where these developments will lead the Austrian right remains yet to be seen.

"The Austrian right defies all analysis," Filzmaier says, as behaviour patterns predicted by political scientists do not seem to apply.

He estimates the potential for a party catering just to the extreme right is between 4 and 5 per cent of the votes, just enough for parliament.

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