Jörg Haider is dead

[salm]

Well, good riddance from this scumbag.

Austria's Haider dies in accident


Joerg Haider died near Klagenfurt in Carinthia

Austrian far-right politician Joerg Haider has been killed in a road accident, police reports say.

Haider died near Klagenfurt in Carinthia, his political stronghold.

He was driving alone when his car came off the road and he suffered severe head and chest injuries, police told the Austrian APA news agency.

The 58-year-old was a former leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, and was known for his anti-immigration and anti-EU policies.

Police investigators in Klagenfurt told the BBC that investigations into the crash were under way.


He had reportedly been due to attend his mother's 90th birthday celebrations later in the day.

"For us this is the end of the world," the deputy leader of Haider's Alliance for Austria's Future, Stefan Petzner, told Austrian news agency, APA.

EU sanctions

Haider was a divisive figure, who gained notoriety after he became leader of the Freedom Party in 1986.

In 1991, his term as governor of the province of Carinthia was interrupted, after he made comments praising employment policies of Nazi Germany.

But he was re-elected in 1999 and 2003.

In 2000, the EU imposed sanctions against Austria in a protest over his party's role in government.

In 2005, Haider founded the Alliance for Austria's Future, which scored its best result so far in recent elections, gaining 11% of the vote.

This was, however, well below the 27% which the Freedom Party won under his leadership in 1999 - a high mark in Haider's electoral career at national level.

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[K. A. Pital]

...the Waffen SS was part of the Wehrmacht [army] and because of that it deserves every honor and recognition.

Indeed, good riddance.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I can't say that I cared much for him and his politics, I feel sorry for his relatives and friends though.

[Bounty]

I'm sure we'd all liked to have seen him fade into obscurity rather than outright die. Still, I can't say I'm all that sad to see him disappear from politics, and we can only hope his AFA collapses. There's nothing wrong with a conservative voice in government, but thess of these populist right-wingers snap up votes, the better.

[Bounty]

but thess of these populist right-wingers

but the less of these...

[Luzifer's right hand]

I'm sure we'd all liked to have seen him fade into obscurity rather than outright die. Still, I can't say I'm all that sad to see him disappear from politics, and we can only hope his AFA collapses. There's nothing wrong with a conservative voice in government, but thess of these populist right-wingers snap up votes, the better.

There is of course the risk that his party and the freedom party reunite.
Together they got more votes than the peoples party which is the 2nd largest party.

[Bounty]

Isn't there too much bad blood between the two to make a coalition work?

[cosmicalstorm]

Not suprisingly, the right wing forums here in Sweden are flooding with conspiracy-theories.

[Teebs]

I was just writing about him in an exam an hour ago. Never happy to see someone die, but some people I'm certainly not sad to hear about.

[Lord Revan]

oh well I'm not gonna say I'm sad to see him die (because I ain't), but dead people tend to become martyrs and the last thing Europe needs atm is a martyr for the right wing rasist and nationalist fuckers.

that said thankfully Finland has been relativly free of those assholes.

if I had a choice I would have seen fade away and die of old age forgotten, but this will do. Poor thing about is family though.

[Raesene]

While I dislike nearly all of his political ideas, he managed to break the stagnation of Austrian politics. And dying on the way to the celebration of one's mother's 90th birthday party...

As mentioned above we had elections two weeks ago, and commentators agree his spinoff of the Freedom party was only successful (about 11% now ompared to barely above the cutoff of 4% in 2006 where they came close to not getting any seats in parliament at all) due to him taking charge again. With Haider dead, a reunion fo the two right-wing parties in my opinion became more likely.

I don't expect him to become a martyrlike symbol, he died in a common accident, he wasn't shot at a rally.

[Invictus ChiKen]

Isn't there too much bad blood between the two to make a coalition work?

NEVER underestimate the power of mutual hatred for a third group to unite people. I can see that happening if the party leader decide a coalition is best.

[Tanasinn]

Shit, I'll say I'm glad to see him dead. People like this are straining with all their might to fight the world's social and economic progress, slow and shaky as it already is, and the fewer of them, the better.

[Raesene]

Isn't there too much bad blood between the two to make a coalition work?

NEVER underestimate the power of mutual hatred for a third group to unite people. I can see that happening if the party leader decide a coalition is best.

With Haider gone, I think a triple coalition of both rightwingers and the conservatives became more likely. Strache (the leader of Haider's old party) didn't want to cooperate with him.

[Sidewinder]

I don't expect him to become a martyrlike symbol, he died in a common accident, he wasn't shot at a rally.

As cosmicalstorm noted, the Nazi wannabes are already throwing conspiracy theories regarding Haider's death. Like it or not, some delusional nutcase WILL make Haider a martyr, and state their intention to punish [insert Jews and other scapegoats here] for the Hitler wannabe's "assassination."

[salm]

While I dislike nearly all of his political ideas, he managed to break the stagnation of Austrian politics. And dying on the way to the celebration of one's mother's 90th birthday party...

I don´t think that´s really a good argument. I´d rather have decades of stagnation than a scumbag like Haider.

[Apollonius]

I don't expect him to become a martyrlike symbol, he died in a common accident, he wasn't shot at a rally.

Furthermore, it was his own fault. He was driving at 140 Km/h where only 70 Km/h were allowed.
Another Good Riddance from me. Since he was the only charismatic figure in his party, the BZÖ will now slowly fade into obscurity. Sadly, most of its voters will probably shift towards the FPÖ.

[LaCroix]

What people outside of Austria doesn't know, is that Haider was only slightly right of US Republican with his political stance. At some issues, he was left from US Democrats.

The bigger problem is Strache, who is everything Haider was ever said to be, but at twice the dosage. He is a real right extremist. When you see him, Haider looks like a moderate centrist.

And now the BZÖ is without leader, and only this leader prevented a merge with the FPÖ, which now is even farther right under Strache as it ever had been under Haider. If the BZÖ isn't included in the governement coalition, it is a rather sure bet that it will be absorbed into the FPÖ.

[charlemagne]

German satire magazine Titanic, as always, with a totally tasteless commentary on the issue here (it reads "Surprise! Another slide to the right in Austria" - partially funny because his car flew from the road on the right side)

Anyways, I hope things won't get even worse now in Austria, with other scumbags lying waiting, and at the same time I'm glad again that German Nazi parties didn't make it above 5% in the last election.

It's kind of weird though seeing again how beloved Haider has been, with people lining the streets at the church service held yesterday.

[Apollonius]

German satire magazine Titanic, as always, with a totally tasteless commentary on the issue here (it reads "Surprise! Another slide to the right in Austria" - partially funny because his car flew from the road on the right side)

What's so tasteless about that? I think it's quite a tasteful and elegant joke.

[salm]

Yeah, Titanic is great.
I think people here around know that US parties are in general more right wing than European ones and that Haider isn´t that much worse than the Republicans. However, that´s not positivie for Haider, just negative for the Republicans.

[Dooey Jo]

Not suprisingly, the right wing forums here in Sweden are flooding with conspiracy-theories.

They're always flooding with conspiracy theories. This is because they are terminally stupid. It goes without saying that they all think this death is a great tragedy and that anyone that calls him "right wing" or associated words is a huge douche. Oh those silly racists...

[Darth Wong]

I'm sure we'd all liked to have seen him fade into obscurity rather than outright die.

Why are you so sure about that? Nazi sympathizers are not the most popular people.

[Bounty]

I'm sure we'd all liked to have seen him fade into obscurity rather than outright die.

Why are you so sure about that? Nazi sympathizers are not the most popular people.

Right-wingers like Haider tend to be extremely popular for a few election cycles until the voters catch on to the fact that they don't achieve anything, and before long they either slink into obscurity or their party implodes in in-fighting - Haider already had that second bit happen to him. If he was still alive today, he'd be splitting the right-wing vote and keep upstart right-wingers from taking center stage; now that he's dead, he's a martyr for the cause. It's the same thing that happened to Fortuyn in Holland, and they're still trying to recover from the damage his crackpot party did when they coasted into government after his death.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm never one to rejoice at someone's death, but I can't help but wonder if Europe dodged a bullet here.

The last time their was a major economic crisis on this scale was the Great Depression, and I'm sure I don't need to point out that it was under those circumstances that Hitler came to power. Now, I can't say I know enough about Haider to claim that he was the next Hitler, but the idea of a nationalist, xenophobic right-winger coming to power, especially in the pressent circumstances, scares me.