Posted on 09/10/2016 11:02:41 AM PDT by Lorianne
The new face of Europe’s far right stands up and holds open his black blazer to reveal a holster-free white shirt underneath. “Look, no gun!” he says with a laugh, poking fun at the media’s portrayal of him as a firearms fanatic who carries his Glock pistol at all times.
Norbert Hofer is often seen smiling and laughing these days. Opinion polls in Austria suggest he may be on the verge of winning the presidency – in a court-ordered Oct. 2 rerun of a May election he narrowly lost – and Mr. Hofer is trying his hardest to get everyone, Austrians and foreigners alike, to relax about the possibility of him becoming Europe’s first far-right head of state since the Second World War.
The 45-year-old candidate of the Freedom Party – a movement founded 60 years ago by former Nazi SS officers – has an easy, beguiling smile. The “nice guy” vibe is aided by his soft-spoken manner, and the cane Mr. Hofer leans on since injuring his spine in a 2003 paraglider crash.
He says it’s only a maybe that he’ll forcibly deport planeloads of mainly Muslim asylum-seekers who arrived in Austria over the past 12 months.
Mr. Hofer is sometimes called the “Donald Trump of Europe” – perhaps because both men are the shaking the old political order – but he’s actually something very different. He’s the polar opposite of Mr. Trump in manner and style, soft-selling his policies rather than shouting slogans, cajoling his critics rather than insulting them. His opponents warn that he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing; the Oesterreich tabloid branded Mr. Hofer a “kind, nice protest politician who wraps the Freedom Party’s brutal declarations against refugees in soft language.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
The presidency in Austria does not have the executive power of the US presidency. It’s strictly a figurehead post. The comparison to Trump falls flat for that reason alone.
Of course the repeated use of “far right” and the need to slip some SS officers into the article tells me all I need to know about the writer.
Marky is a hard core leftists but spins and lies his far left ideology unless. Confronted .
A true sociopath - fanatic leftist who should have been arrested too for the Gore debate tape scandal . He later work for McCain and then jump ship and secretly worked for Obama in 2008.
The Austrian president can call for countrywide referenda on issues as he chooses.
Interesting, thanks, didn’t know that. Is there any precedent for an Austrian president actually doing that? Would Hofer go as far as calling for the expulsion of muslims, criminal muslims at least?
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