A War Among Comrades
Pamela Rendi-Wagner was re-elected leader of the Social Democratic Party last week with the worst result for a sitting leader running unopposed.
Servus!
Social democracy in Austria is being buffeted by many of the same external forces weakening the left in other European countries: the shrinking and atomization of the traditional working class; the decline of the labor movement; and the fragmentation of social democracy’s tradition voter coalition. The challenges these trends present to social democracy are enormous, as is the work of re-conceiving social democracy to make it relevant in the twenty-first century.
Even considering the foregoing, one should never underestimate the ability of social democratic parties to undermine themselves. Such was the case at last weekend’s party conference organized by the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ). Such gatherings in Austria are oft uneventful affairs at which party leaders are re-elected unopposed with numbers that would make Saddam Hussein blush. SPÖ leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner would have been hoping for an Assad-like coronation herself, but it was not to be.
In an election in which she was the only candidate running, Rendi-Wagner only managed to find support among 75 percent of party voters. In an Austrian context, the result was an embarrassment. A quarter of the delegates at last weekend’s conference chose to spoil their ballot rather than vote for Rendi-Wagner: the worst ever result for an SPÖ leader seeking re-election as party leader while running unopposed. That a quarter of the electorate acted in this way “surprised” the political advisor Thomas Hofer, who argued in a recent interview that the SPÖ leadership should be “deeply troubled” by this act of rebellion, one which would only serve to “damage” the party and hamper its ability to act.
A few months ago, Rendi-Wagner’s prospects were looking up. Back in January, she was the most popular politician in the country, her standing as a former health minister and an expert in matters of epidemiology and vaccination having helped her stand out in the middle of a pandemic. Now that Austria’s vaccination program is running at quite the clip, thoughts in the country and party are turning to life after the pandemic and how best to recover from the damage it wrought—particularly, where the SPÖ is concerned, on working families. On this point, dissenters worry Rendi-Wagner simply doesn’t have a handle on such a core social democratic issue: work.
While she has floated the idea of a four-day working week in the past, in the state of Burgenland where Hans-Peter Doskozil is governor, the SPÖ has opted for a minimum wage for employees paid by the state. Rendi-Wager and Doskozil disagree too, it is fair to say, on immigration, an issue which has vexed the SPÖ for decades and since the 2015 refugee crisis in particular. Critics also worry about Rendi-Wagner’s strategic competence, and in particular why it was that the SPÖ chose to unleash a debate about citizenship, an argument the People’s Party (ÖVP) would love to have, at a time when the governing party is on the ropes plagued by corruption allegations.
In the end, this all comes down to a broader schism within the SPÖ between the federal party in Vienna and certain state-level parties out in the country, where Rendi-Wagner is perceived to be representative of a certain urban bobo leftism irrelevant to the lives of working people. In spite of this, and her bad re-election result, Rendi-Wagner has pledged to carry on and the elites in the SPÖ and the trade union movement have formed ranks around her. But the SPÖ’s doubts about their own leader are out in the open now. Once more, the greatest danger to social democracy has come from within.
Bis bald!
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Dead-End to Wembley
Austria’s Euro 2020 run ended on Saturday evening with a 2-1 defeat in extra time at the hands of Italy. Austria had a goal ruled out for offside in the second half and the game ended 0-0 after 90 minutes. Having conceded twice, Austria launched a valiant comeback effort when striker Saša Kalajdžić headed the ball over the line in the 114th minute to make it 2-1.
Freak Tornado
Austria’s emergency services sent aid over the border to the Czech Republic last week after a freak tornado tore through parts of southern Moravia, killing five people and injuring a further 200. In many villages in the region, roofs were torn off houses, windows broken, trees uprooted, and cars turned over. The landscape was described by the Czech health minister as a “warzone.”
Asylum Debated Anew
Two male asylum seekers from Afghanistan, aged 16 and 18, were taken into custody Monday over the murder of a 13-year-old girl in Vienna. The victim was reportedly drugged and sexually molested prior to her death. The murder raised questions about Austrian asylum policy including the psychological support the state offers to victims of war and displacement.