The Oh, Hello, we're looking at Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Two guests today,

first and seconds, Benjamin of Pratko will review the results of the recent Austrian

elections. And at the bottom of the hour, Stephen Tellus will try to entice us with a political hybrid.

First, Austria.

On Sunday October 16th, Austria held parliamentary elections.

The People's Party, a traditional conservative formation, came in first, the Social Democrats

second, and a far-right party, the Freedom Party, third.

The two parties of the right will form a government.

Here's Benjamin of Protco, a fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin and who teaches the

University of Vienna with more.

Let's start with the journalistic basics.

What just happened with the Austrian election?

So we had federal elections last Sunday and the

outcome was that we now have the most right-wing parliament in the history of

Austria since 1945. The two main winners are the far right-wing Freedom

Party, the F-PU and the Conservative Party Uphopi, which has historically

been all has always been the the traditional

party of Austrian conservatism but has transformed rather recently when it was taken over by a very young politician called Sebastian Kurtz in May.

So the Uphope have won the election and the F period of far right have become third and together they now control 60% of the Austrian

parliament. And as often happens with these things one of the ways the far rights

influence operates is by moving the entire

political spectrum in their direction, right?

...