← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Hilaire Belloc
Thread ID: 10120 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-09-29
2003-09-29 17:02 | User Profile
[url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3147428.stm[/url]
Poll losses for Austrian far-right By Bethany Bell BBC correspondent in Vienna
There have been heavy losses for Austria's far right Freedom Party in provincial elections.
Final results from the votes in the provinces of upper Austria and Tyrol show a major setback for the far-right Freedom Party.
The party, once Europe's most successful far-right movement, has fallen on hard times.
Although it is still the junior partner in Austria's governing coalition, its supporters dropped by more than half to 8.4% in upper Austria and to 8% in Tyrol. There was better news for its coalition partner, the Conservative People's Party, which maintained its hold on both provinces.
And the Social Democrats appear to have gained from the Freedom Party's losses, coming second in both Tyrol and upper Austria.
The Freedom Party lost around two-thirds of its support in national elections in November.
That followed a power struggle led by its former leader, Joerg Haider, which toppled the last coalition government.
2003-10-06 03:50 | User Profile
The Freedom Party was never really worth anything anyway. People got taken in by the media hype about how "evil" they were and assumed that they were more than they were.