NEWS

THE POLLARD CASE

Rightist Party
Wins In Austria

Vienna (JTA) — Alarm is
all-pervasive here over the
unexpected electoral victory
of Jorg Haider's rightist
Freedom Party in the Nov.
10 municipal elections after
a nasty campaign that ap-
pealed to prejudice and
xenophobia.
How a party whose leader
recently praised Adolf Hitler
could win 22.7 percent of the
vote for the city legislation,
up from 9.7 percent four years
ago, has commentators
baffled.
Many are comparing the
political climate in Vienna
now to the Kristallnacht
atmosphere of 53 years ago
when, during the night of
Nov. 9-10, 1938, hundreds of
Jewish stores and 94 syn-
agogues were destroyed by
mobs in a post-Anschluss
euphoria.
They also recall that in
1932, the last time Austria
had free elections before the
Anschluss — the Nazis' an-
nexation of Austria — the
Nazi party made its gains
mainly at the expense of
conservatives.
The Freedom Party seems
to have done the same.
The conservative Austrian
Peoples' Party — the party
of President Kurt Waldheim
— fared worst. It received
only 18.1 percent of the vote,
down from 28.4 percent in
1987, and now ranks third in
the town Parliament.
The Socialists, who have
ruled "Red Vienna" since
1949, managed to win 47.5
percent, a significant drop
from their 54.9 percent four
years ago.
Although the Socialists
will retain control of the
municipality, the elections
frightened many people by
exposing sinister forces just
below the surface and the
deterioration of the two
major parties.
The economy, of course, is
not good, always fertile soil
for extremists. Unemploy-
ment is running at 6 per-
cent, unusually high by
Austrian standards, and
Viennese workers are upset
by the influx of cheap labor
from Eastern European
countries.
For the first time, a large
percentage of low-skilled
workers who normally vote
Socialist, turned to the
Freedom Party, which made
no bones about its anti-
immigration stand.
Mr. Haider, 41, shameless-
ly stirred emotions over lib-
eral immigration policies. To
many, he is a latter-day

Hitler, perceived as a polit-
ical genius. After all, he led
his extremist splinter party
to 13 electoral victories in
five years.
Mr. Haider, of course, has
benefited from the mistakes
and complacency of the tra-
ditional parties and the
changing behavior of
Austrian voters.
The World War II genera-
tion desperately wanted
stability after 1945 and
chose either the Social
Democrats or Christian con-
servatives.
But the younger genera-
tion, which grew up in com-
fortable prosperity, seeks
something new and
challenging. They want to
break with the traditions of
their fathers.
The younger voters are
mainly people free of
ideological baggage. Their
voting decisions are usually
spontaneous, made without
reflection.
Mr. Haider, one of their
generation, is skilled in
playing on the most primi-
tive emotions. He constantly
calls the Socialists and con-
servatives the "old parties"
and offers himself as the
solution to the problems
they supposedly brought on
the country.
Having never had the task
of governing, Mr. Haider has
no record to defend but can
point to the blunders of the
ruling bureaucracy.
"While the Socialists and
conservatives become ever
more hazy in their desire to
please everybody, the
Freedom Party harvests the
fruits of their foolish behav-
ior," says political scientist
Anton Pelinka.
The political vacuum was
created on one hand by the
Socialists, who forgot they
were the workers' party, and
by the conservatives, who
weakened their identity as
the Catholic party, Mr.
Pelinka said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Haider's
blatant neo-Nazi remarks
did not frighten off his young
supporters. When he praised
Hitler's labor policies before
the regional parliament in
the southern Austrian re-
gion of Carinthia, he lost his
seat but his popularity did
not suffer.
Several years ago,
pollsters predicted the
Freedom Party would peak
with 20 percent of the pop-
ular vote. It exceeded that in
Vienna last week and stands
as the most successful party
of the right in all of Europe.

JOIN THE NATIONAL PHONE-IN DAY
TO HELP JONATHAN POLLARD

WHEN:

This Monday, December 2, 1991

CALL:

The White House Message Line

1-202-456-1111

THE MESSAGE:

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Jonathan Pollard's sentence
to time served.

Free Pollard now!

Michigan Committee for Freedom for Jonathan Pollard

For more information call (313) 788-9394 or (313) 661-4727

Call in and be counted!

WANTED:
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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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