Unloved coalitions

摘要

A Fter a string of electoral defeats and in-ternal divisions, the far right staged a spectacular comeback in the Austrian election on September 28th. Between them, the openly anti-immigration Freedom Party and its offshoot, the Alliance for Austria's Future, led by Jorg Haider, took 29% of the vote, within a whisker of the Social Democratic Party, which remained the biggest party even though its vote fell from 35% to just under 30%. Young voters (whose numbers had risen because the voting age was reduced to 16 before the election) seem to have been as keen on the far right as their older peers, if not more so.