Austria Tilts To The Right

By ROD USHER

He says all the wrong things--then he says all the right things. In some eyes he is merely a brash, Porsche-driving, bungee-jumping populist politician. In others he is a racist and an apologist for Nazism. He is unfairly vilified and misunderstood--or he is just plain bad. What is certain about the zig-zag course of Jorg Haider's right-wing ideology is that last week it brought him and his Freedom Party into a coalition government in Austria--and left the 14 other member countries of the European Union in a state of indignation. As Haider and his political partner, Wolfgang Schussel of the conservative People's Party, defied the wishes of Austrian President Thomas Klestil and signed their deal, the score was Demagoguery 1, Diplomacy 0.

All the threats and cajolery of E.U. leaders desperately trying to keep Haider from power failed--even after the U.S. and Israel, in rare forays into European domestic politics, threw in their weight, Israel by recalling its ambassador and the U.S. by bringing its ambassador home for "consultations." But some observers felt that the outside agitation merely served to bolster Haider's support--the 27% his party won in Austria's elections last October. As Anneliese Rohrer, domestic-affairs editor of the Vienna daily Die Presse, put it, "Austrians do not like to be kicked around. They are saying, 'Well, if they all hate him, he must be good.'" According to Rohrer, it would have been far worse for Haider if he had been ignored.

He was not. E.U. leaders, remembering an Austrian-born populist who climbed to power in 1933, believed they could not just stand by and say nothing. "We are aware of possible reactions and feelings among Austrian people, but...we think it is our duty to react in this way," said Frederic Desagneux, a spokesman for French President Jacques Chirac. The swift reaction was also a reminder that Austria is not alone in flirting with the right. In Germany, far-right parties hold seats in four of 16 states. And in Switzerland, Belgium and France there are nascent but energetic extremist movements knocking on the political door.

What was clear amid the diplomacy and demagoguery last week was that the other D word--democracy--had taken a serious hit. Though E.U. leaders abhor politics based on disparaging immigrants as crime-causing, job-snatching aliens, the inclusion of Haider's party in the government means that Austria's parliament is under the influence of a substantial contingent that favors just that brand of politics. This sets a dangerous precedent for European countries besieged by immigrants willing to settle for low-paying jobs that other residents often don't want. That wave of imported workers is tilting the continent's demographics--much to the displeasure of rightists such as Haider. The fear is that Austria may foreshadow what is to come in other European nations.

To be sure, Haider has not been widely embraced in Austria. Before he inked his coalition deal, some 15,000 of his countrymen took to the streets to protest his rise--and to vent their displeasure with Schussel, whom some see as the real villain, a man hungry enough for power to open the door to a man like Haider. Both Haider (who will not join the government but will wield enormous influence in the coalition) and Schussel (who rises from Foreign Minister to Chancellor) moved quickly to try to dampen the flames of international condemnation. They signed a declaration pledging to "work for an Austria in which xenophobia, anti-Semitism and racism have no place."

But it is largely Haider's inflammatory remarks on those very subjects that required such a declaration in the first place. (Austria's history with Nazism, which includes a controversy over the activities of one-time U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, didn't help either.) During last year's campaign, for example, Haider was interviewed by the Vienna weekly Falter. Asked to name the worst criminals of the century, he listed Hitler, Stalin--and Winston Churchill, though he denied having said this in a later interview.

In an interview with TIME, Haider said he had already admitted "some mistakes in the past" and had apologized "for having wounded people by this." Dressed in a trim-fitting black suit with a black tie, the superfit Haider claimed to represent the new generation of Austrians. "We are a young movement--35% of our voters are people between 19 and 30," he said. "They want to look into the future and not to look back. But we know we have to keep in mind this dark period of Austrian history."

It's hard to gauge how much Haider's extremist values color his political agenda. He was born in Upper Austria in 1950 to parents who were enthusiastic Nazis. His father joined the Hitler Youth in 1929, and his mother was a member of the local Nazi party's League of German Girls. Haider, reportedly a millionaire, lives with his wife and two daughters in the southern province of Carinthia on an inherited estate that produces a comfortable income from forestry.

Haider began his political career in the mid-'70s after taking a law degree at the University of Vienna. He never practiced law, however, concentrating instead on his steady climb up the nation's political ladder. In 1979 he became the youngest (age 29) member of the Austrian parliament. Ten years later he became Governor of Carinthia, but he was forced from office two years later after giving a speech in which he praised the efficiency of Hitler's employment policies. His return to power--after being re-elected Governor in 1999--was a reminder that in some Austrian political circles, the appearance of Nazi sympathies is a forgivable sin.

"It's not as if the elections were rigged," says Jean-Yves Camus, a Paris-based political scientist. "I'm worried that we may be helping Haider to achieve his objective, which is to govern alone."

Despite some of the more extreme depictions of him last week, Haider is not a political monster riding to power on antiquated rhetoric. He is, for all his flaws, a clever, telegenic and--most important--democratically elected politician. European, American and Israeli leaders have decided that the best way to deal with him is to isolate him. Austria's voters may have other plans.

--Reported by James L. Graff/ Brussels, Nicholas Le Quesne/Paris, Andrew Purvis and Angela Leuker/Vienna, Ursula Sautter/ Bonn, with other bureaus