Quote:
For the first time since World War Two, the two parties that have dominated Austrian politics for decades, the Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party, were both knocked out of the race.
A political earthquake had occurred in this small, wealthy central European country.
And there were consequences. Shortly afterwards, the Social Democrat leader, Chancellor Werner Faymann, resigned after a revolt in his party over the failure to stop the Freedom Party, which has been on the rise here for years.
And now the smiling, softly spoken Mr Hofer could be on the verge of becoming the first far-right head of state in the European Union. The run-off vote on Sunday is expected to be close.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36343623
Quote:
Political analyst Thomas Hofer (no relation) says the success of the anti-immigrant Freedom Party has much to do with long-term and deep-seated discontent with the political status quo in Austria - fuelled by the migrant crisis.
Ninety-thousand people claimed asylum here last year, equivalent to about 1% of the Austrian population.
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Seems like the welcome's reached its limit then. Who'd have thought?...
Once again we're seeing that it's easy to make short term gestures, not so easy to deal with the long term ramifications.