Europe - Right wins this week's elections in Austria and Romania | Eastern NC Now

The trend to the right continues in Europe as the right handily won elections this week in Romania and in the Austrian province of Styria.  In Romania, the election was for the country's presidency, and in Styria for the provinicial parliament.

The first round of Romania's presidential election produced a runoff between two candidates of the right.  Ultra-nationalist independent Cailin Georgescu with 22.9% and former TV presenter Elena Lasconi of the center-right Save Romania Union with 19.1% took the two runoff spots, eliminating the Social Democrat candidate who the media had annointed as the frontrunner but instead ran third.  Lasconi's Save Romania Union is the lead party in the United Right Alliance coalition for Romania's December parliamentary election.

Georgescu, who ran his campaign mostly on social media had initially joined the populist nationalist anti-immigration Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) after leaving a series of UN jobs, but fell out with AUR and ran as an independent.  AUR had become disturbed at Georgescu's praise of leaders of Romania's World War II fascist Iron Guard and his tendency to be supportive of Putin.  AUR's own candidate for president of Romania ran fouth with 13.9% while the traditional conservative PNL, party of the outgoing term limited president, ran fifth.

In Austria, a thumping victory for the populist nationalist anti-immigration Freedom Party in the provincial election in Styria (Steiermark) was both a statement on its stand against illegal immigration and a rebuke to the traditional conservative Austrian Peoples Party over its poor treatment nationally of the Freedom Party after the national parliamentary election.  The Freedom Party doubled its vote in Styria from 17.5% to 35% to come in a solid first place.  while the Peoples Party dropped 9.2 points to finish second with 26.9%.  The far left Green Party lost half its vote to finish at 6.0% while the Social Democrats dropped 1.6 points to finish at 21.4%.

In the national election earlier this year, the Freedom Party won a clear first place finish but the country's president from the Green Party defied all tradition and designated the second placed Peoples Party to try to form a government, and the Peoples Party leader has since ignored the Freedom Party in his attempts to form a government, which are still ongoing.  The voters of Styria spoke on this travesty by punishing both the Peoples Party and the Green Party.

The national problem of the Peoples Party seems to revolve around its current national leader and his attitudes.  The Freedom Party had loudly blasted him for his Covid lockdowns when he was Health Minister.  The Freedom Party has formed national coalition governments in the past with both the Peoples Party and the Social Democrats and is currently in coalition provinical governments with the Peoples Party in four provinces.

National polls are showing that Peoples Party voters are moving to the Freedom Party after this political ambush.  The latest national poll puts the Freedom Party at 34%, up 5 points from the 29% it obtained in the parliamentary election, while the Peoples Party is down 3 points to 23%.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/right-wing-fpo-crushes-centre-right-in-austrian-regional-elections/