The Austrian vote

Ex-Green leader pulls off a victory

Ex-Green Party leader Alexander Van der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party, which has some Nazi roots, in Austria’s presidential elections Sunday.

The Austrian election results proved, first, that Austria, like various European and other countries, is idiosyncratic and unpredictable. It should not be forgotten that in 1986, Austrians elected Kurt Waldheim, a former secretary-general of the United Nations who had a Nazi military past, as president. That choice presented Europeans and others with a problem, to receive the Austrian president or boycott him because of his past. The Austrians weren’t bothered one way or the other; they had chosen Mr. Waldheim as their president.

To some extent, and to the alarm of some, the right has been advancing in Europe and in America as well, with the two political phenomena reinforcing each other to a degree. The irony of the defeat Sunday of the far-right candidate, Mr. Hofer, in Austria, where one could realistically have expected right-wing fervor to have been inflamed by the country’s resistance to immigration from the Muslim east, is that the electorate voted instead by 53.8 percent in a 74.2 percent turnout to choose a “Green” as president. For some on the right, pro-environment is almost as bad as pro-immigrant. Right-wing parties have in general in Europe raised their heads higher than usual in recent years. ( The question of whether “right wing” and “populist” mean the same thing can be ducked as too dependent on the country under analysis, including the United States, for one to judge.) A broad range of political parties still exists in Europe. In Spain, there is Podemos; in Greece, Syriza; in Italy, the Five Star Movement, which was instrumental in pushing Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to resign. In Germany, opposing Chancellor Angela Merkel, there is the Alternative for Germany; and in the United Kingdom, the U.K. Independence Party, instrumental in causing the British to vote June 23 to leave the European Union.

The victory of Mr. Van der Bellen indicates that the struggle between left and right continues and is capable of surprises.