After the Brexit and Trump tsunamis, the next appointment with the populist tide is that of December 4th in Austria (in Italy populism exists, indeed, both on the right and on the left and also in the centre, but it does not provide the key to understanding the outcome of the forthcoming referendum).
A consultation, the Austrian one, with infinitely less shocking consequences, and yet significant in that it will measure the incidence of those same socio-cultural factors – revolt against the establishment, challenge to political correctness, fear of uncontrolled immigration, intolerance against European Union – even in an old democratic country in Central Europe.
As some may remember it is about the rerun of the ballot for the election of the Head of State held in May, won by the left-wing candidate with a margin of only thirty thousand votes and then canceled due to minor irregularities, completely irrelevant to the outcome of the vote.
In the first round, the voters had wanted to slap the two traditional parties (still in government in an inharmonious "grosse Koalition") by eliminating their candidates and handing the ballot to two outsiders: the ex-leader of the Greens Alexander van der Bellen and the number two of the “libertarians” (nationalist right) Norbert Hofer.
A new postponement, this time due to a technical defect in the already reprinted ballots, extended the vacancy of the highest office in the republic by another three months.
Populism effect in Austria
Those who had foreseen the comeback in the final sprint of the English leavers and then of Donald Trump, sensing that the polls underestimated the "populism" effect (anti-politics, taste for anonymous slaps, nationalism) are now predicting a victory for Hofer for similar reasons, albeit trailing by two points in opinion polls.
During last spring's campaign, the Fpoe exponent had indicated a propensity to interpret extensively the function of the Head of State, which in the material constitution, or in practice, is analogous to that of our President of the Republic, but according to the written Constitution it includes the power to fire the government.
Lately he has put this interventionist ambition on the back burner and focused instead on the image of the father of a family, young, smiling, moderate, reassuring, capable of worthily representing the country abroad.
Strache's is linked to Hofer's future
If elected, he will be unable to reorient Austria's foreign policy; but, within a couple of years, it could to some extent facilitate the advent of the much more combative Strache to the Chancellery (probably in coalition with the "popular", i.e. the Christian Democrats).
This would, yes, be a worrying twist. Not in the sense of a regurgitation of old authoritarian, fascist, racist ideologies (as some only superficially informed commentators abroad will not fail to maintain), but of an affirmation of nationalist and Euro-sceptic rhetoric, combined with the refusal to suffer the wave migratory. An involution, in short, similar to that of Poland and Hungary.
Kurz, the man to avert alignment with the Visegrad group
The hopes of those who fear this prospect of alignment with the Visegrad group rest not so much on the social democrat Kern, Chancellor for a few months, with solid managerial credentials but seen as the embodiment of continuity; but on the young and dynamic Sebastian Kurz, rising star of the Christian Democrat party OeVP and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Kurz raised a few eyebrows, even here, without hesitating to say what many think, but mostly don't dare to say, about the incompatibility of Erdogan's Turkey with EU values and the need to curb (not completely ban everything) the influx of refugees and migrants. But what matters is that he offers a credible center-right alternative to Strache's right, a pro-European alternative to the populist, Lepenian, anti-European drift.
