Linkliste unbehandelter Themen: Politics

I've said it before, and it never changes: I find myself completely unable to write about the Viennese election. There are some things I find intriguing, like the fact that the Freedom Party candidate has ads in which he prominently shows off his Brojanica, a Serbian prayer bracelet (this started with the 2008 national elections, when his opposition to the independence of Kosovo was one of the only international issues he ran on). I am assuming that the "average" Austrian citizen can not read this message, as most are probably unfamiliar with the meaning of the bracelet, but the community of voters with a Serbian background are. The juxtaposition of "good" Christian Serbs and "bad" Muslim Bosnians is an old story, but the particular way in which he holds out his hand, sending his little message to those who are able to decode it ("mir vastegnan uns, oda?"), is a bit odd. Also, the one I mean can't be found on the official campaign website, despite the extensive library of current and past campaign posters.

After winning the Styrian elections, the Social Democrats don't rule out a cooperation with the Styrian Freedom Party, most famous for introducing a game with the title "Moschee-Baba" that was promptly banned and taken offline.

"Auch Bundeskanzler und SPÖ-Chef Werner Faymann baut auf die Ablehnung der FPÖ. Faymanns Credo lautet bereits seit dem Wahlkampf im Jahr 2008, dass eine Zusammenarbeit mit der FPÖ nicht möglich und abzulehnen sei. Diese Distanzierung würde in ihrer Glaubwürdigkeit allerdings radikal untergraben werden, wenn Voves jetzt in der Steiermark mit den Freiheitlichen eine Zusammenarbeit paktieren würde."

DerStandard: Voves liebäugelt mit FPÖ, September 27, 2010

Local elections are mostly local, but it is still interesting to look at how the distribution of voters has changed since the elections in 2005 (which were overshadowed by the division of the governing Freedom Party). Both the Social Democrats and the People's Party lost a lot of votes to non-voters (about 20 000 each) and to the Freedom Party (about 10 000 each). The Communists (who had a surprisingly high turnout in 2005 and carried the protest votes) lost about 8000 votes to the Freedom Party.

Elsewhere, 

Black Box Democratic Republic of Korea seems to be preparing for a leadership change but naturally, it all stays in the family, Ed Miliband took over the struggling Labour party, Astronomers seem to have found a Plan B in case Planet Earth does eventually become uninhabitable, although "living in constant twillight" doesn't sound that cheerful, and Carey Mulligan is quite charming and wonderful (I had to sneak in that last part).