Left-wing candidate wins Austrian election

The Austrian mentality, wrote Thomas Bernhard, is like a Punschkrapfen: red on the outside, brown on the inside and always a bit drunk. Since 1970 it has been run by (red) social democrats for all but seven years; but never far from the surface, and sometimes above it, there has been a thick seam of (brown) far-right politics.

Isn't this the re-vote after a number of 'irregularities' in the postal votes the first time around ?

Maybe the results will be over turned again, I can see a civil war tearing Austria apart before the next elections if 46% voted for a nationalist and are about to get more Africans and Muslims tearing through their cities. If I'm also not mistaken, Austrian gun shops have been struggling to keep up with demand lately as people are beginning to arm themselves in that country.

Why is brown associated with fascism? I've noticed this, but is it just because of the brownshirts or is there a backstory to it?

We had to learn about this in history when I was in school, left over uniforms used by the Nazi party, they were brown because it blended in with the African continent I guess ?

The SA have been known in contemporary times as "Brownshirts" (Braunhemden) from the color of their uniform shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini's blackshirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members. The SA ranks were adopted by several other Nazi Party groups, chief amongst them the Schutzstaffel (SS), which originated as a branch of the SA before being separated. Brown-coloured shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large batch of them were cheaply available after World War I, having originally been ordered during the war for colonial troops posted to Germany's former African colonies.^[1]

Yes, he is a neo-Nazi like Farage, le Pen, and Trump.

Oh thank god.

Brown is associated with Nazism, yes, because of the brownshirts; I think black is more associated with fascism as a whole, because fascism grew to prominence first in Italy.

How sad is it that a neo-nazi only getting 46% of a national vote is now something to celebrate?

A few years ago I would have been alarmed if he'd been polling 20%.

Yes but the actual left won. If the solution to the rise of right wing nationalist populism is a new left wing then that is a good thing.

How sad is it that a neo-nazi only getting 46% of a national vote is now something to celebrate?

A few years ago I would have been alarmed if he'd been polling 20%.

Yes but the actual left won. If the solution to the rise of right wing nationalist populism is a new left wing then that is a good thing.

I believe it's around 80% counted now (derStandard.at and ServusTV are reporting around that figure) and yeah there's no way for the far-right candidate to win, since even the postal votes are expected to go in the left-wing candidates favour.

It's good to see there's a much bigger difference between the results now compared to May A pretty big kick in the teeth for those hoping the EU was going to keep falling apart.

Now we just wait for the excitement that is Netherlands, France and Germany 2017.