Vote for Vienna's mayor! Because I can't!

[Eddie Teach]

I'd like to live in a skyscraper one day.

[Razgovory]

I would not.

[Tonitrus]

I'll hold out for an arcology.

[Valmy]

Oh I would love to live in one of those fancy gentrified condos downtown. It would be fantastic, the Austinite dream. Maybe someday.

[jimmy olsen]

Voted for number 5.

Number 1 photo is dead.

[Syt]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/world/europe/rise-of-austrian-right-lengthens-shadow-of-nazi-era.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=3&referer=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FcFaZWH6Lfc

Rise of Austrian Right Lengthens Shadow of Nazi Era

VIENNA — As befits the city of Sigmund Freud, Vienna has two faces — one sweet, one sinister.

Behind the schnitzel and strudel, Mozart and the opera, lurks the legacy of the Nazis who forced Jews to clean sidewalks with toothbrushes. In 1988, to much controversy, Vienna placed Alfred Hrdlicka's "Memorial Against War and Fascism," featuring a sculpture of a Jewish man cleaning the street, right behind the State Opera, lest Austria again forget.

Now, to the astonishment of many and the alarm of some, the burning question in Vienna's elegant cafes is, Which face will prevail in the city's bellwether elections on Oct. 11?

Roughly one in four of Austria's 8.7 million residents lives in Vienna. For almost the last century — aside from the Nazi years, 1938-45 — the left has ruled "Red Vienna," long prized for its pioneering public housing and welfare, and its cultural ferment.

But against the backdrop of Europe's refugee drama, the far-right Freedom Party is threatening the Social Democrats' hold in what may portend a more general rise in populist, anti-immigrant sentiment across the Continent.

Riding a wave of anxiety over the tens of thousands of migrants entering Austria this month, the Freedom Party finished second, with just over 30 percent of the vote, in regional elections in northern Austria on Sunday.

The Freedom Party's strident anti-Islam message seems to have struck a chord in a city whose palaces speak of the bygone glory of a multiethnic European empire, and whose public spaces now attest to increasing diversity and a Muslim population of some 12 percent.

"We don't want an Islamization of Europe," the party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, told Austria's public broadcaster as he began his campaign to be Vienna's mayor. "We don't want our Christian-Western culture to perish."

In Germany, such sentiments exist on the fringe of politics. In Austria, which never underwent denazification programs after 1945, the Freedom Party has morphed from its roots in groups of former Nazis to a xenophobic message that it blends with concern for the little guy. It is a message that the party's charismatic leader, Jörg Haider, rode briefly into national government, and it has thrived beyond his death in a car crash in 2008.

In the last Vienna elections, in 2010, the Freedom Party vaulted to more than 25 percent of the vote, a gain of over 10 percentage points. By this summer, opinion polls suggested, the far-right party had pulled almost level with the Social Democrats, who got 44 percent in 2010. Both now hover just above 30 percent.

The causes are manifold, including unemployment that has risen to more than 10 percent and dissatisfaction with the longtime mayor, Michael Häupl. His working-class base is eroding; others fault him for failing to end cozy patronage systems that favor the powerful over the poor.

What everyone is wondering now is what effect the migrants will have.

Thousands of Viennese have greeted tens of thousands of refugees arriving from Hungary this month. The national government, which had long flailed on the issue, found a firm voice and strongly criticized Budapest for putting refugees on trains that led them not west to Austria, but to a camp in Hungary. This, said Chancellor Werner Faymann, a Social Democrat, "brings up memories of our Continent's darkest period."

Like Germany, Austria loudly advocates asylum for refugees. Its projected total of applicants, many from the Middle East, is 80,000 this year, meaning that, like Germany's, its population may grow by 1 percent.

But its image as a caretaker for waves of refugees over decades — Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, East Germans and former Yugoslavs escaping Communism or war — suffered this summer. Its main refugee center at Traiskirchen was found to be squalid, with inadequate medical care and more than 1,000 people sleeping in the open. When the authorities refused to admit a group from Doctors Without Borders, leftists seethed.

When a reporter visited the camp in late August, conditions had improved, although tents still provided shelter for 1,200 of the 3,000 people there. Austrians shocked by the conditions had brought so many clothes, toys and other goods that containers overflowed with rejects.

Opponents of the far right hope events — the greeting of the migrants and the discovery of 71 corpses in a truck abandoned by smugglers — have turned the tables on Mr. Strache.

"These are experiences which will not be forgotten so quickly," said Georg Hoffmann-Ostenhof, a columnist for the center-left weekly Profil. Indeed, Austria's tabloids switched from headlines about the chaos brought by refugees to images of warm welcomes, although the arrival of tens of thousands may strain slender resources.

Not everyone is optimistic. "The people are ready to help," said Hans Rauscher, a columnist for the Vienna newspaper Der Standard. "But don't kid yourself. You only have to listen to the gossip in the bars" to know that anti-Muslim feeling runs high.

Far-right supporters are often reticent around foreigners, and Freedom Party leaders generally shun what they view as critical news outlets. But a Vienna activist took a reporter to a "Speakers' Corner" in a district where the Freedom Party vote has grown steadily.

To judge by this gathering of about 30 of the party faithful, the left has little to fear. The microphone and speakers' platform never showed up; the event was a washout.

It did, however, provide a rare opportunity to talk to just over a half-dozen people in their 20s about why they support the far right. They railed against corruption, poor city transportation and the fears of older adults who, they said, could not venture out at night. They kept a disciplined focus on local affairs. "That's national level," said Stephan Promont, 20, when asked about the refugees.

The only national figure present, Harald Stefan, a Freedom Party deputy in Parliament, made clear his sympathy for Hungary's tough stance. "The Germans were to blame," he said of the refugee surge that followed a message on Twitter from a German official widely read as saying all Syrians could enter. "You can't blame Hungary for that."

The Freedom Party's campaign, titled "October Revolution," preserves the jingoism the party has made its own. "Vienna should not become Chicago" was a favorite slogan back in the 1990s. This year, one motto is "Respect for our culture instead of false tolerance" for anything un-Austrian.

Some immigrants are acceptable: For Mr. Strache, "the Serbian Christian Orthodox" — about 100,000 people here — "are his allies against the Turks," Mr. Rauscher said.

To counter Mr. Strache, the Social Democrats compiled a "Blue Book" of his deeds and speeches. In the introduction, Mayor Häupl writes: "History books tell us enough about where things can lead if demagogues get power. We want to make sure that no new chapters have to be written. That is why the coming elections in Vienna are decisive, and not just for our city."

[Syt]

FPÖ has an ad campaign online and in papers offering €5000.- reward for anyone who can provide proof of election fraud (election fraud hasn't been an issue in recent elections, though FPÖ always doubts the veracity of the mail in votes which can swing seats).

Meanwhile, the FPÖ said that if any elderly or infirm voters need help getting to the voting stations, they can offer volunteers to help them.

For tomorrow they advertise an event the "risks of migration" (though "Völkerwanderung" is generally the German term for the waves of migration in the late Roman Empire). you can read about their special guest here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Sarrazin



On Saturday, tens of thousands marched in support of refugees, with over 100,000 attending a free pro-refugee concert at Heldenplatz afterwards.

[Syt]

And a footnote figure: ~25% of the adult population of Vienna will not be allowed to vote for the city council, because they're not Austrians.

[Zanza]

The party that won every election since the war won again!

[The Brain]

Sonstige.

[Syt]

The result is more decisive than was expected, but the FPÖ still has the best result ever. It looks like Red-Green will continue (though a coalition of the Social Democrats with the Conservative ÖVP would also be possible).

There might still be some minor changes; there was a record 200,000 applications for mail in votes, so the final results will be in tomorrow. It appears NEOS picked up a lot of protest votes from people who couldn't bring themselves to vote FPÖ.

[Zanza]

It appears NEOS picked up a lot of protest votes from people who couldn't bring themselves to vote FPÖ.

Just read their Wiki article and they sound like a party that I could vote for.

[Syt]

Bit of an upset in the Inner City, traditionally a conservative district. With the, uhm, problematic distric mayor getting kicked out by ÖVP and starting for FPÖ this time, ÖVP lost half their votes, while SPÖ picked up and won the majority. FPÖ only gained half the votes that the ÖVP shed.

The results for the district councils aren't in yet, but this should be interesting to watch. It looks like FPÖ won two districts: Simmering and Floridsdorf, both blue collar areas, but with low migrant population compared to, say, Favoriten. In Favoriten the SPÖ and FPÖ are currently one hundredth of a percent apart, so mail in votes will probably make the decision there.

[Syt]

Votes for FPÖ by district:

[Syt]

A couple more notes:

The SPÖ scored well among voters of all education levels (ca. 30-40%), whereas the FPÖ rated very well with low education groups and under 15% among academics. The Greens show the opposite result.

SPÖ also scores about the same with blue collar and white collar workers, whereas the FPÖ is strongly biased towards blue collar workers.

25% of the SPÖ voters said their main reason for voting Social Democrat was to keep the FPÖ from power.

Among people of migrant background the SPÖ gained almost 50% of the vote, the FPÖ almost 25%.

Middle and upper middle class votes are splintered. Traditionally, the ÖVP would gain their votes (esp. business owners or self employed), but that has eroded as their traditional voters quite literally died off - young people vote Red, Blue, Green, old people ÖVP. A lot of the "classic" clintele for ÖVP now votes Green, Red, Neos, or not at all.

My district retains an ÖVP majority in District council, with 5, 10, 15% lead on Greens, SPÖ and FPÖ respectively. Not surprising - the district mayor is a young energetic woman who took many points from Greens and SPÖ into her agenda and has a very good track record for improving things over the last 5 years. Almost all her motions were accepted unanimously, but the district councils are usually much more cooperative than the city parliament.

Inner City is for the first time since World War 2 not ruled by the ÖVP after the, uhm, colorful Ursula Stenzel was kicked out of ÖVP and joined the FPÖ. She still considered it a moral victory since she claims it was only due to her that FPÖ doubled their votes there (which is probably true, but didn't nearly make up for the votes the ÖVP lost without her).