Daily Archives: December 19, 2013

Austria

Who is Sebastian Kurz? Meet Austria’s new 27-year-old foreign minister.

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While most of Europe was watching the birth of Germany’s latest grand coalition government last week, Austria’s grand coalition also finalized its government platform.austria flag

Austria, which has an even stronger tradition of cozy coalition politics between the center-left and the center right, will continue to a coalition that’s comprised of its main center-left party, the Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (SPÖ, Social Democratic Party of Austria) and its main center-right party, the Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP, Austrian People’s Party).

There was very little unexpected news about the coalition deal, which will continue the broadly centrist course of center-left chancellor Werner Faymann’s government.

But the decision to elevate the hunky 27-year-old Sebastian Kurz as Austria’s new foreign minister was something of a shock.  Michael Spindelegger, the ÖVP leader and deputy chancellor, who previously served as foreign minister between 2008 and 2013, will become the government’s new finance minister.

The decision leaves Kurz (pictured above) as one of the world’s youngest political leaders in such a high policymaking role.

So who is this whiz kid?  Kurz became involved in politics at age 10, and by 2009, he was the leader of the youth wing of the Austrian People’s Party.  In 2010, he was elected to the city council of his native Vienna, running under the slogan, ‘Schwarz macht geil‘ (‘Black is cool,’ referring to the color most associated with the People’s Party) in a campaign Hummer that quickly gained the nickname as the ‘Geilomobil‘ (which translates roughly to ‘Horny-mobile’), befitting Kurz’s growing reputation as somewhat of a party animal.  Before you judge him too harshly, however, remember that it was part of a wider push to make the ÖVP more attractive to young voters. And just four months ago, two competing leaders of the Austrian far right both posed shirtless in public.

But by 2011 he was already serving as state secretary for integration, where he impressed skeptics by working to ease the path for the growing number of immigrants to Austria, including through the institution of an extra year of pre-school for immigrant children to learn German.  He helped spearhead a new immigration law in May of this year that clears a path to citizenship for some immigrants within six years.

It was a controversial move on Spindelegger’s part, but it paid off, and Kurz was elected to the Nationalrat (National Council), the chief house of the Austrian parliament, in the September 29 parliamentary elections with a higher number of votes than any other candidate. 

His approach contrasts with that of the more xenophobic approach to immigration of Austria’s far right.  In  September, the Social Democrats won 27.1% and the Austrian People’s Party won 23.8%, but the anti-immigrant, anti-EU Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ, the Freedom Party of Austria) won 21.4%, a strong third-place finish.  But a Dec. 12 Hajek poll showed that if the elections were held over today, the Freedom Party would emerge as the leading party with 26%, followed by the Social Democrats with 23% and the Austrian People’s Party at 20%.  A new free-market libertarian party, Das Neue Österreich (NEOS, The New Austria), which entered the National Council for the first time in September’s elections, would win 11%.

The Freedom Party’s relatively young and charismatic leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, wasted no time in criticizing Kurz for his inexperience:

“When Mr Kurz becomes foreign minister without any diplomatic experience, you have to be amazed. This is the continuation of Austria’s farewell to foreign policy,” right-wing leader Heinz Christian Strache told parliament on Tuesday.

Kurz… took the blows.  “It’s true, of course. Due to my age I have limited experience and of course hardly any diplomatic experience. But what I bring is lots of diligence, energy and the desire to contribute something,” he told Reuters.

But Kurz emphasized the international nature of his previous role with respect to integration, and he argued that his relative youth and high media profile would allow him to make an immediate impact.  Though Austria, with just 8.5 million people, has a less dominant voice on European matters than Germany, it plays a key role in the Balkans, where Serbia and other former Yugoslav countries are hoping to begin accession talks to the European Union early next year. (If your German skills are up for it, here’s an interview with Kurz in Der Standard earlier this week).

Kurz’s appointment also means that he will likely take a key role in the upcoming European Parliament elections by convincing Austrian voters not to turn to euroskeptic parties like the Freedom Party or Team Stronach, the conservative movement of Austro-Canadian businessman Frank Stronach.  Spindelegger was criticized during his tenure at the ministry for being a ‘half-time foreign minister’ in light of his duties as the ÖVP leader and deputy chancellor. Continue reading Who is Sebastian Kurz? Meet Austria’s new 27-year-old foreign minister. →

Bangladesh

Opposition continues boycott of Bangladesh’s parliamentary elections

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Bangladesh, the world’s eight-most populous country, was supposed to kick off the 2014 election season, where unpopular prime minister Sheikh Hasina seemed set to be kicked out of office by voters angry about the economy, the lack of jobs, and above all, her handling of the war crimes tribunal that began in 2009 and that resulted last week in the execution of Islamist leader Abdul Quader Mollah. bangladesh flag icon

Instead, Hasina and the Bangladesh Awami League (বাংলাদেশ আওয়ামী লীগ) look set to win virtually all of the 300 seats in the Jatiyo Sangshad (the National Parliament, জাতীয় সংসদ) when voters head to the polls on January 5.

That’s because the most prominent opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP, বাংলাদেশ জাতীয়তাবাদী দল), as well as the smaller Jatiya Party (National Party, জাতীয় পার্টি) and the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (বাংলাদেশ জামায়াতে ইসলামী) are all boycotting the election over what they claim are the unfair conditions of the race.  Specifically, the BNP and the Jatiya party oppose Hasina’s refusal to adhere to the tradition of appointing a caretaker government to conduct national elections.

The boycott leaves at least 154 seats uncontested, which have essentially already been awarded to the Awami League.  That could further escalate the political tensions that reached a crescendo in October, when the BNP launched two general strikes against Hasina’s government and protests that have left hundreds of Bangladeshis dead — all in response to Hasina’s refusal to step down as prime minister.  Opposition forces are also currently enforcing a transport blockade that’s crippling the Bangladeshi economy — since November, the blockade is estimated to have cost the economy up to $4 billion.  Hasina’s government has increasingly responded with a heavy hand, and police forces are carefully tracking the BNP and its leader Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister, and they have detained the leader of the Jatiya Party, Hussain Muhammad Ershad, also a former Bangladeshi leader.

It’s a depressingly familiar story in Bangladeshi politics, which has been dominated by the same parties and the same leaders since the early 1980s.

In particular, the 1996 elections crisis feels like a virtual echo of the current political crisis.  But 17 years ago, the roles were reversed, with Zia leading a BNP government and Hasina leading the Awami League in opposition.  The Awami League began agitating for Zia’s resignation after it alleged that the BNP fraudulently stole a 1994 by-election.  The Awami League organized general strikes throughout the country that disrupted the government for the purpose of brining about a caretaker government and fresh elections, just like Zia and the BNP are doing today.  When Zia called a vote for February 1996, the Awami League and the Jatiya Party boycotted the elections and the BNP won all 300 seats in the national parliament.  The parties ultimately agreed to install a caretaker government in late March 1996 headed by Muhammad Habibur Rahman, the chief justice of Bangladesh’s supreme court, paving the way for a second set of elections in June 1996.  The Awami League won those elections with a minority government, and Hasina became Bangladesh’s prime minister for the next five years.

A similar outcome could be likely in 2014 — and Hasina has indicated that she is willing to dissolve the next parliament and call new elections if the BNP denounces political violence and severs its ties to the Jamaat-e-Islami.  Though the BNP is hardly as Islamist as the Jamaat-e-Islami, Islamism is an issue that has traditionally divided Bangladesh’s two main parties, with the BNP favoring a moderately Islamist nationalism and the Awami League favoring a secular Bengali nationalism.  But the BNP already controls large parts of the country already, and trust between the two longtime enemies is so low that a deal could be hard to broker.  Continue reading Opposition continues boycott of Bangladesh’s parliamentary elections →