What happens when there is a crisis but no mass workers’ party
In the general elections on September 29 the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ), led by Herbert Kickl, emerged victorious with 28.8%, 1.4 million votes, its highest ever. Strikingly this vote was nearly double its poor 2019 result, showing again that the FPÖ will not simply vanish after a single bad election result. The FPÖ’s result is a new high point in a long political development of popular alienation from the established parties and an expression of increasing polarization.
The outgoing chancellor’s party, the Peoples party (ÖVP), only managed 26.3%, over 500,000 votes down in 2019 while the Social Democrats (SPÖ), led by the left-wing figure Andreas Babler, saw their percentage stagnate around a weak 21.1%, gaining just 20,000 more votes. The ÖVP’s small coalition partner, the Greens, were punished and ended up in 5th place with 8.2% behind the neoliberal NEOS. A number of small lists secured votes below the 4% hurdle necessary to get into parliament, including the Communist party (KPÖ), which was, however, able to increase its EU election result last June in absolute numbers from 105,000 to 116,000 votes (2.4%).
“All parties against Kickl” further strengthens the FPÖ
At the time of writing, all parliamentary parties are still against cooperation with the FPÖ. The “solution” on offer is a three-party coalition between the ÖVP and SPÖ plus Neos or the Greens. However, any new government will face a difficult economic situation, as Austria is in recession. The demands of business representatives are: reduction of labour costs, reduction of corporate taxes, government subsidies for companies, raising of the retirement age. All this is to be paid for by increased work pressure, longer working hours, falling wages/salaries/pensions and cuts to the welfare state. The capitalists therefore have no problem with the FPÖ’s programme, only with its unpredictability. However, the longer the government negotiations last, the greater the pressure towards an FPÖ-ÖVP coalition. The last two times, they have, among other things, massively worsened the pension system and prolonged the maximum working hours a day to 12 hours. .
But the plague cannot be fought with cholera. Because supposedly “marginalizing” the FPÖ while at the same time continuing attacks on the rights and living standards of the working class plus adopting the FPÖ’s racist demands prepares the ground for even greater FPÖ successes in the future.
Stopping the FPÖ – what doesn’t work
In 2000, there was a huge – but ultimately unsuccessful – resistance movement against the first ÖVP-FPÖ coalition. What finally shook that government were not the months of mass demonstrations against it, but the major strikes against the pension reform as well as the railway strikes, both in 2003. In 2018, the protests against the 12-hour working day also put the second ÖVP-FPÖ coalition government in a tight spot. But in both cases, the hesitant attitude of the trade union leadership saved the government because it undermined the protests instead of toppling the government and its policies. That is why the key question in the coming months will be how the trade union leadership will position itself towards a future government – whether it will remain relatively passive again or finally organize the necessary class resistance, also under pressure from below.
The FPÖ has been in the national government twice and each time it has stumbled over scandals. But the fact that it has always recovered shows that right-wing populism will not simply disappear as long as the basis on which it is built – capitalist crisis, class antagonisms, social problems and discontent – continues to exist and there is no socialist alternative. The central weapons in the fight against right-wing extremism are therefore a socialist program, class struggle and a new workers’ party.
Babler-SPÖ, KPÖ and the question of the new workers’ party
For more than a year now, the SPÖ has had a left-wing leader in Andi Babler. A KPÖ member is mayor of Graz, the second largest city, and another was in the run-off for the same office in Salzburg. But in this election, both Babler and his relatively left-wing programme as well as the KPÖ, failed to gain inroads to workers and the poorer classes. Babler did not make a real break with the bourgeois politics of the SPÖ and its apparatus.
With over 116,000 votes, the KPÖ was able to almost triple its result compared to 2019 – a considerable increase, but below expectations. It limited itself to the issue of housing in the election campaign. On the one hand, this is a continuation of its social work approach and, on the other, an expression of their failure to present an alternative to capitalism and its logic. Both Babler and the KPÖ tried to present themselves as “respectable”, not too radical. The focus on the electoral level and the illusion of achieving change through parliament became a problem as they were seen as working within the ‘system’ when many are alienated by the ‘system’. They have once again left the field open for the FPÖ and its supposedly anti-establishment politics, at the end of the campaign the FPÖ’s slogan was “On election Sunday, we will bring down the system.”
It is quite possible that with a more offensive programme for the working class and a clear focus on movement and mobilising rather than just on the electoral level, the pure vote result would have been lower. But such an election campaign would have been the basis for building a genuine activist base with which a militant campaign could have been waged for the demands put forward and against the attacks of the future government. And this would have been a decisive step forward in building a genuine militant party for workers and young people. This was not done during the election campaign – and is now urgently needed: In the coming collective bargaining rounds, where it is also important to build a militant trade union opposition, in movements for more resources in health and education, in protests against racist and sexist policies and against possible attacks by a new government.
Rebuilding the trade unions as democratically run campaigning organisations and the creation of a new political party for the working class and youth are necessary to challenge both the inevitable attacks of the ruling class and also the FPÖ which defends the fundamentals of this system. Creating such forces is a first step but they would need a programme which answers the immediate needs of the working class and argues for a socialist alternative to capitalism. In this way, the FPÖ’s support can really be undermined, workers can be won back from it, and the capitalist system, which generates right-wing populism and needs it in times of crisis, can be overcome.
Election results:
https://www.bundeswahlen.gv.at/2024/nr/
