Austria elections: A swing to the right<br>

APD NEWS

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"Islam is not a part of Austria," said Heinz-Christian Strache at the Freedom Party’s (FPO) final election rally.

The crowds cheered the far-right candidate for Chancellor, as around the outskirts, headscarfed women pushed their prams and went about their business. Neither seemed visibly concerned by the presence of the other.

One watching supporter was annoyed by the presence of a journalist though: "Fucking American asshole" he scowled, to smiles from those around him. It’s not the first time reporters have been called something similar while covering far-right gatherings. (And for the record, I’m British).

In the Turkish market next door, we met Bici Melahat. She was not best pleased that Strache had picked her Vienna neighborhood for the climax of his campaign. "When I wear this headscarf, they look at me … why? My face is here – I am a woman. I speak perfect German. That’s the truth," she told us.

Top candidate and head of far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) Heinz-Christian Strache attends his party meeting after Austria's general election in Vienna, Austria, October 15, 2017.

Melehat is a part of Austria – she is a citizen, and a Muslim.

Should she be worried about her future?

The FPO gained around a quarter of the vote in elections on Sunday. The party is favorite to become the junior partner in a coalition government led by 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz’s People’s Party.

Founded by former Nazis in the 1950s, the party has a controversial past. In 1989, Strache himself was reportedly arrested at a neo-Nazi linked march. And more recently, an FPO councilor was suspended after allegations he’d been seen doing a Nazi salute and shouting "Heil Hitler".

Top candidate of the People's Party (OeVP) Sebastian Kurz attends his party's victory celebration meeting in Vienna, Austria, October 15, 2017.

But "the FPO has shifted away from some of its most extreme positions," Prof. Dardis McNamee told me on Sunday evening as the first results were coming in. "It's not as far right as the Alternative for Germany," said the editor and publisher of the magazine METROPOLE Vienna.

Some of the party mantras are classic populist – more Swiss-style referendums; strongly anti-immigration, and anti-Muslim.

But here’s something you wouldn’t hear from the AfD: "We support the EU," the FPO’s former presidential candidate told me on the sides of Friday night’s gathering.

In other parts of Europe, centrists have sought to shut the far right out. Take Germany, a country where the argument against appeasement may never be forgotten. The AfD is now the third-largest party in the Bundestag after elections last month. And yet if Angela Merkel was caught picking up the phone to talk about a coalition deal, there would be mayhem.

Austria is itself no stranger to the lessons of 20th century history. Here, the establishment has reluctantly accommodated the FPO for decades. The prevailing view in Vienna is effectively this: A failure to listen can also feed extremism.

(CGTN)