Austria’s Social Democratic Chancellor stood down in a shock announcement this morning amid collapsing support for traditional parties in the country, in a move which has been called “a beautiful day for Austria” by his insurgent nationalist opponents.
Socialist-left Chancellor Werner Faymann’s Social Democratic Party of Austria failed to even make it to the second round of voting in last month’s presidential elections, as citizens voted overwhelmingly for candidates from alternative political movements. Just one in ten Austrians voted for the party in government.
After the count, only Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party of Austria and Alexander Van der Bellen of the Green Party went through to the next and final round of voting. Popular anger over Austria’s response to the migration crisis, which for most of 2015 was to welcome allcomers and made Austria one of the highest net importers of humans in Europe, has manifested itself at the ballot box.
Anti mass migration, Eurosceptic, low-tax presidential candidate Mr. Hofer made it clear that should he be elected he would be selecting a new Chancellor, and probably not from the socialist left. After months of poor poll performance for his party and pressure from within to not accommodate and work with the anti-immigration right, Mr. Faymann appears to have decided it is better to jump than be pushed.
At a press conference this morning a spokesman for the former chancellor said Mr. Faymann had decided to go after losing the confidence of his party, from which he is also resigning his leadership. Mr. Faymann said:
“This country needs a chancellor who gets full support from his party. The government needs to make a strong new start. Whoever does not have this support cannot accomplish this task”, reports Politico.
No successor has yet been chosen to lead Austria, and the Social Democrat Party is left in disarray.
The news has been met with undiluted joy in some quarters. Freedom Party of Austria member of the European Parliament Harald Vilimsky was moved to remark that the resignation made for a “beautiful day for Austria” and that German Chancellor and architect of the migrant crisis Angela Merkel “should follow Faymann” into early retirement, reports Kronen Zeitung.
Austrian citizen movement the Identitarians, who have recently performed agitprop protests including storming the roof of the Austrian Imperial Theatre and staging a mock beheading on the streets of Vienna, told Breitbart London that they had demanded and predicted Faymann’s resignation.
The group represents a key demographic behind the runaway success of the Freedom Party and said the resignation of the Chancellor was a “success of the new patriotic movements. We say, bring on the next resignation!
“We do not cry for [Faymann]. This is just the beginning”.
Referring to the European migrant crisis and the rapidly shifting demographics of cities like London, which is now less than half native British and has just elected its first Muslim Mayor, he said: “We will replace the politicians, before they replace the people.”
Follow Oliver Lane on Twitter: Follow @Oliver_Lane or e-mail to: olane@breitbart.com
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