Saturday, October 11, 2008

Auf weidersehen Haider

Jörg Haider, the brains behind the far-right wing Freedom Party in Austria and later the Alliance for Austria's Future, and the former premier of the country's Carinthia region, was killed in a car accident today. Haider was notorious for his anti-immigration and anti-EU policies. At his peak, he stunned other EU countries when he managed to win 27% of the popular vote and that led to temporary sanctions against Austria. More recently, he's only been polling about 11% but was expected to have a role in the next coalition government there as well.

Not going to say that I miss Haider, any more than I'm going to miss Jean Marie Le Pen when he dies; but apparently Haider was on his way to his mother's 90th birthday party when his car flipped over several times almost inexplicably. Not exactly my preferred way of exiting stage left.

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