Most Austrians -- and most of the country's major political parties -- vehemently oppose Turkey's bid to join the EU. But it's election time in Vienna, and suddenly those same parties are courting the local Turkish vote.
So how do you meld the conflicting interests of appealing to the mainstream Turkophobe Austrian electorate while catering to voters of Turkish origin whose ballot will make a difference in yesterday's capital's election?
"It's tough occasionally," conceded Nurten Yilmaz, an Austrian of Turkish origin, as she took a break from handing out red balloons and folders urging voters -- Turkish and otherwise -- to vote for her Social Democratic Party.
Only one of the five parties running for City Hall -- the xenophobic Freedom Party -- is not fielding a Turkish candidate. Instead, it appeals to the rabidly anti-Turkish fringe vote with posters declaring "Liberated Women instead of the Mandatory Headscarf," and "German instead of `Don't Understand.'"
But with most of Austria's 200,000-strong Turkish community living in Vienna, a city of about 1.5 million people, the other parties cannot ignore their vote.
Many Turks here are skeptical of their sudden popularity -- and with reason.
"I've been here for 20 years but I'm still not fully accepted," Mehmet Akar said in strongly accented German as he stopped at Yilmaz's stand in Vienna's 16th District, where kebab stores are next to shops offering more traditional Austrian goods.
Recent EU surveys show only one in 10 Austrians backs the idea of Turkey joining the bloc. Austria tends to have little political clout in the EU. Yet it took days of intense pressure from the bloc's 24 other member states for Vienna to abandon its attempt earlier this month to scuttle talks with Turkey on future full membership.
Critics say that local politics played a part, with Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel hoping -- but failing -- to swing voter sentiment behind his conservative People's Party in the province of Styria by demonstrating his party's unbending opposition to Turkish EU membership.
In Germany, the other EU nation with a large Turkish-origin electorate, the governing Social Democratic party supported Turkey's bid to join the EU, while the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) objected. The resulting Social Democratic vote among Germany's 2.6 million-strong Turkish community is thought to have contributed to the unexpectedly good showing by the party that left the favored CDU with little choice but to form a coalition with its traditional rival.
In Austria, there is no such clear divide on the Turkish question. But the People's Party -- the governing party nationally -- seems to be fighting an uphill battle because of its vehement opposition to Turkish EU membership.
Turkish candidate Sirvan Ekici repeatedly canceled appointments with a reporter wanting to accompany her during campaigning. Even the rightist BZOE has fielded a candidate of Turkish origin, despite past opposition to immigrants by its leading figures, including populist firebrand Joerg Haider.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS