Austria - 2008 Election National Council
Austria is a parliamentary democracy with constitutional power shared between a popularly elected president and the bicameral Federal Assembly (parliament). The country's eight million citizens choose their government representatives in periodic, free, and fair multiparty elections. In 2004 voters elected Heinz Fischer of the Social Democratic Party (SPO) to a six-year term as president. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces.
Immediately following the December 2007 accession to the Schengen area of countries bordering on the east of Austria, there was a surge in the number of asylum seekers. The number of refugees at the reception center south of Vienna increased from 300 to 700. Hundreds of emergency beds were set to accommodate the inflow. Among them were 250 Chechens who came to Austria illegally and were already seeking asylum in Poland; they were identified by the EURODAC fingerprinting/registration system and returned under the Dublin Convention. The government granted refugee status or asylum. It subscribed to a "safe country of transit" policy, which required asylum seekers who transited a country determined to be "safe" to return to that country to seek refugee status. Member states of the European Union (EU) and other signatories to the 1951 convention were considered safe countries of transit.
From 2005 to 2007, following the introduction of stricter detention and removal policies, asylum applications dropped over 50 percent, from 22,461 in 2005 to 11,879 in 2007. The pattern continued during 2008: In the first six months of the year, asylum claims totaled 5,344, down 6.4 percent compared with same period a year earlier. During this period the largest groups of first-time applicants were from Serbia (580), Moldova (540), Russia (477), Nigeria (341), and Turkey (258).
Heinz-Christian Strache was elected FPÖ party chairman in 2005. The trained dental technician became active in Viennese politics in 1991 and was elected to the Vienna parliament in 2001. He led the party further to the right on an anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner platform. While the party did well in opinion polls, Strache himself rarely performed well among Austria's preferred candidates for chancellor. His abrasive and populist style as a campaigner did little to recommend him among the country's conservatives as a man worthy of high office.
The country held parliamentary elections on September 28; there were no reports of serious abuse or irregularities. Political parties could operate without restriction or outside interference. The Federal Assembly consists of the National Council (popularly elected) and the Federal Council (named by the federal states). There were 52 women in the 183-seat National Council and 16 women in the 62-member Federal Council. There were five women in the 14-member Council of Ministers (cabinet). There appeared to be relatively little representation of ethnic minorities at the national level. Following the September 28 elections, a Muslim woman entered the Federal Assembly for the Green Party.
Internal Freedom Party (FPO) disputes led to a split and formation of a new party headed by Haider, the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ). Both parties performed well in the 2008 parliamentary elections, with the FPÖ winning 17.5% and BZÖ 10.7%. Just 13 days after the elections, Haider died in a car crash in southern Austria. Police found no evidence of foul play. Haider was driving by himself when his car veered off the road after passing another vehicle. It then hit several obstacles, including a concrete foundation of a fence, and flipped over several times.
Haider, a charismatic populist and leader of the far-right Alliance for the Future of Austria, was a deeply controversial figure and his death sparked strong reactions. "For us, this is like the end of the world," Alliance spokesman and deputy leader Stefan Petzner was quoted as saying by the Austrian press agency APA. Haider "was a politician who moved and changed Austria," Petzner said at a press conference during which he was frequently overcome with emotion. Austrian President Heinz Fischer said he was "deeply affected" by the death of Haider. But he also pointed to the divisive nature of his politics, saying Haider had been a "politician of great talent," who had sparked enthusiasm as well as criticism.
Haider turned Austria's small far right movement into a force to be reckoned with by often denigrating political opponents, and by tapping into revisionist and anti-immigrant sentiments. Haider was notorious for provocative statements, such as his assertion in 1991 that the Third Reich under Hitler had a "proper employment policy." Nazi Germany had enslaved Jews and foreigners for its wartime economy. Haider was forced to step down as governor of Carinthia after that comment. He was re-elected as governor in 1999.
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