Vienna, Feb 4 (EFE).- Some 30,000 people demonstrated Tuesday in Vienna against a possible coalition government between the far-right FPO and the Christian Democratic ÖVP.
The demonstrators, who gathered in front of the Federal Chancellery under the slogan “anti-fascist alarm, marched to the ÖVP headquarters to the sound of techno music and anti-fascist slogans.
“The FPÖ has been working for many years to come to power, but we will not be silent. We don’t agree with what they are planning for us,” said Queerbase spokesperson Marty Huber in a speech to the crowd.
Austria’s two right-wing parties have been negotiating to form a government for the past four weeks after talks between the ÖVP, the social democratic SPÖ, and the liberal NEOS party broke down in early January.
The failed alliance, which collapsed over a strategy for dealing with the country’s public accounts, was aimed at preventing the FPÖ, and its leader Herbert Kick, from coming to power after winning the Sep. 29 general election with nearly 29% of the vote, ahead of the ÖVP’s 26.3%.
On Wednesday, the four-month-long coalition negotiation process will become Austria’s longest. The previous record was 129 days in the 1960s.
“I am afraid that they will reach an agreement. It’s a very serious situation. This government could damage democracy,” Monika, a 59-year-old activist who belongs to the group Grandmothers Against the Right, told EFE.
Lu, a 20-year-old film and theater student, said she was worried about the rise of the far right in Europe and that “protesting is the least we should do.”
While she said to have been initially hopeful that the negotiations between the FPÖ and ÖVP would tank, she has now lost almost all hope.
“I don’t want a right-wing government because they have been in power twice before, although their governments were always short-lived. Their policies have caused a financial disaster, and now we have no money,” said Franz, a 70-year-old protester, addressing the current Austrian economic crisis.
As the march reached the ÖVP headquarters in downtown Vienna, reports appeared in the local press of possible turbulence in the negotiations between the far right and the Christian Democrats.
The ÖVP issued a brief statement shortly thereafter, confirming that the negotiations were in a difficult moment.
The Austrian press has been reporting for days on alleged disagreements between the two parties over the distribution of ministries and Austria’s orientation in European and security policy.
The ÖVP defines itself as a pro-European party; the FPÖ is Eurosceptic and is part of the “Patriots for Europe” parliamentary group, along with Hungary’s Fidesz party and Spain’s Vox, among others.
Austria has had a strong right-wing political presence since the 1980s.
In 2000, Joerg Haider’s FPOe entered a coalition government, a first in the European Union, sparking protests that drew up to 250,000 people.EFE
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