Shift to the right? Swing to the left!

Change of Perspective

Never before have fewer people voted right-wing in Austria than in this federal presidential election: 49.7%. Traditionally, Austria has always had a clear, conservative majority for parties to the right of center - between 55-60%, incidentally stable for several decades.

So how is it that in these politically uncertain times full of challenges, of all things, the skillfully acting, likeable and rhetorically skilled candidate from the right camp cannot gain a majority? How could he lose votes compared to previous election results? It will probably not be due to the sooo dynamically conducted, creative or even original election campaign of the honorable counter-candidate from the left camp. Please, where in the world can an unambiguous green politician rally 50.3% of the population behind him - i.e. draw votes from the right-wing camp to himself, as it were?

I remember a key moment in this election campaign, a moment when everything was actually already over: at the moment when the ORF switches to the FPÖ headquarters on election night, the usual extras with red-white-red signs start chanting "Austria! Austria! Austria!" chanting. Not that I don't like Austria, I love my homeland and I also find the word "Austria" in its peculiar sound, in its phonetics, charming and endearing. But the gesture, the impetus with which seemingly wild men here declaim this "Austria" of ours, that has triggered real unease in me.

This ritual is to repeat itself exactly several times this evening, every time the ORF switches to the FPÖ headquarters the same thing happens. There is agitation in the air - and the will to exaggerate. At a time when the election campaign is long over! The shiver finally runs down my spine at the idea that now possibly our next federal president will declare his election victory in front of this frightening scenario, this beer tent-like tumult. Thank heavens and earth that we have been spared this cruel moment. Because in the way this troop chants "Austria!" in front of running cameras, the inflammatory spirit of this movement comes to light. Are these people misusing our common good "Austria" for their aggression?

My hypothesis is that the 50.3% of voters (who are certainly not all Van der Bellen fans) understood in time - perhaps not rationally, but in their gut feeling - that in a society that has come as far as it has here in peaceful and highly developed Austria, one simply does not make a right-wing populist federal president.

On the other hand, the fact that it is now possible to elect a real Green politician to the representative leadership of this country has already proven to be correct in the very first appearances of the designated Federal President - not only because of his economic competence in the area of wealth redistribution or because of his position on European policy. No. It is right above all because of his discreet, unobtrusive but unmistakable emotional intelligence: the thanks to the competitor, the credible expression of respect to the political opponent, the handshake, the approach to one another - these are the right and important signs. A good end to a long election campaign and a successful start to a new, certainly challenging presidency. Unite instead of divide is the motto.