The election follows the historic victory of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) in the legislative elections, with the Jewish community outraged by the appointment of “someone who pays tribute to the Nazis”.
This Thursday, the Austrian Parliament elected a far-right figure as president for the first time, sparking outrage in the Jewish community over the appointment of someone who “pays tribute to Nazi criminals.”
Walter Rosenkranz, 62 years old, received 100 votes out of 162announced the outgoing president, Wolfgang Sobotka, after the vote in Vienna.
The choice arises following the Historic victory of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) in the legislative elections since the end of September.
The far-right party wins the elections in Austria with 29% of the votes, the first projection reveals
Rosenkranz was elected in a secret ballot with a slim majority, thanks mainly to the votes of his political family and the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP).
In a country where the extreme right is no longer taboo, the The outgoing chancellor, Karl Nehammer, justified the vote based on “customs” and “tradition”“, which dictates that the position will be awarded to the party that wins the elections.
Some deputies said they wanted to “follow their conscience,” invoking their “unwavering anti-fascism” to vote against a “Europhobe” from a party “increasingly closer to the right-wing extremism of the Identitarians.”
In the face of criticism, FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl praised Walter Rosenkranz’s “unwavering loyalty to our beloved Republic of Austria and his unwavering loyalty to democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Since 1981, Walter Rosenkranz has been a member of the far-right organization “Libertas“, which introduced the Aryan paragraph in 1878, which prohibited the integration of Jews.
During World War II, many of these organizations were part of the Nazi extermination machine, in Austria annexed by Adolf Hitler.
“This paragraph was abolished long ago.“Rosenkranz recently reacted, interviewed by the Austrian press, highlighting that “all kinds of things can be exhumed from the Internet.”
Before the vote, Oskar Deutsch, representative of the Vienna Jewish community (IKG), expressed his indignation in an open letter to deputies at the election of a man from the “revisionist camp,” who “pays tribute to Nazi criminals”.
The Greens demonstrated against this “disastrous signal”, “incompatible with Europe”, for the “second highest position in the country”, which presides over the National Fund for Victims of Nazism, “an affront to all survivors”, they considered.
After the legislative elections, the Austrian president, Alexander van der Bellen, gave instructions this week to Chancellor Karl Nehammer, leader of the conservative ÖVP and second most voted, to form a new government with the social democratic opposition, since no one wanted to join forces with the far-right party FPÖ, winner of the elections.
In addition to trying to reach an agreement to form a coalition with the Social Democrats, Nehammer will have to analyze the convenience of including “a third partner” so that the future alliance in power is “stable,” he indicated.
The Head of State thus informed the population of the decision he had made, after holding several rounds of consultations with the leaders of the five parties that will have parliamentary seats in the new legislature, resulting from the legislative elections of September 29, won by the FPÖ, with 28.8% of the votes.
They were followed by the Christian Democratic People’s Party (ÖVP), with 26.3%, the social democratic SPÖ, with 21.1%, the liberal Neos, with 9% and the Greens, with 8%.
Source: Observadora
