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In Austria, Germany and Italy, where the radical right has grown stronger before the coronavirus epidemic, it has been in decline for the past six months, for various reasons, including the migration of far-right voters.
It was a bad day for Herbert Kickl, chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), on October 12, when it turned out that the proportion of votes cast by his party in the Vienna municipal elections had fallen from 31% to 9%. . According to the party president, it was not the other political forces that defeated them, but, for example, the fact that Heinz-Christian Strache, the former president of the FPÖ, divided his voters at the head of a new dwarf party. The FPÖ case fits in with the downward trend of the European radical right, writes the Financial Times.
Populist parties have grown unstoppably in recent years, but moderate right-wing government parties, including the CDU led by Angela Merkel or Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, have pumped fluctuating voters to the moderate right, responding well to the epidemic of coronavirus. Partly because of this, internal contradictions also plague right-wing populist political forces from Italy to Germany.
Where is the old light?
Matteo Salvni, the leader of the Italian League, has been at the forefront of the popularity charts with his sharp anti-immigration policy in recent years, but the outbreak of the pandemic has distracted people from the old proven political issue. Meanwhile, Giorgia Meloni, at the head of the Italian Brothers Party, rivals Salvini within the radical right.
Even more spectacular is the radically better decline in Germany, where the eurosceptic Alternative to Germany (AfD) party has waged an internal war. In the provincial party organizations, the hardliners and the moderates have long been at war, but in September this contrast led to the split of the party faction in the local legislature of both provinces. This had the unpleasant side effect that their numbers fell below the legal minimum, so they had to dissolve their political groups, causing serious financial losses to Members.
According to the latest opinion polls, the AfD stands at nine percent nationwide, compared to 13 percent in the 2017 parliamentary elections, making it the largest opposition political force in the Bundestag. Over the past three years, it has become clear how extremist the party is and how many connections there are, so voters can see that they are dealing with a classic German far-right political force, says Professor Kai Arzheimer, a political scientist.
Not everywhere
In addition to the pandemic and infighting, another major reason for the decline is that migration has been removed from the political agenda for the time being. The rise of the populist right was sparked by the immigration crisis of 2015, when a million people, mostly fleeing the Syrian civil war, turned up in Europe. The sight of many Arab and African faces produced a nativist response in Europe. (According to nativist nationalism, people have innate values.)
However, the downward trend is not true for all countries. Spain’s Vox remains a strong party after becoming the third-largest political force in Madrid’s legislature with a 15 percent turnout in parliamentary elections a year ago. The French National Assembly benefits from the fact that the country’s former right and left have withdrawn, so its leader, Marine Le Pen, may be Emmanuel Macron’s only serious rival in the 2022 presidential elections.
According to Professor Arzheimer, the far-right organizational divisions between Italy and Austria miss the point. The fact that support for the right has not generally diminished among voters. All that has happened is that it is divided between several parties. Therefore, it would be premature to speak of becoming obsessed with populist politics in Europe.
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