The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
In earlier elections, defiling others' posters has been a far-right speciality, unfortunately. Particularly bad were the 2002 elections, when practically all giant posters of the liberal party in Budapest were smeared with anti-semitic slogans in a timespan of days.
There is actually a law against defiling or removing other parties' posters, but the practice is common even among party activists. Just this past week, a Jobbik activist was captured in the act of removing a cardboard poster of another party, with half a dozen in the hold of his car already. (I note that Jobbik's own cardboard posters in my town, hanging on makeshift bars put on electric masts, appear to be illegal. But there was never much control of this, either.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
As a rule of thumb, I'd say 1/6 of the vote going to xenophobic parties should be considered 'normal' in Europe. It's when they start polling above 20% and becoming the second largest party (or the first!) as in the Swiss SVP or Wilders in the Netherlands that one can talk about something anomalous going on.
Often this vote will be hidden in mainstream right-wing parties and the explicitly senophobic options remain marginal (as in Spain) but it doesn't mean that 1/6 of the voters aren't xenophobes. The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter
by Frank Schnittger - May 27
by Frank Schnittger - May 5 22 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 23 1 comment
by Oui - May 13 64 comments
by Carrie - Apr 30 7 comments
by Oui - May 27
by Oui - May 24
by Frank Schnittger - May 231 comment
by Oui - May 1364 comments
by Oui - May 910 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 522 comments
by Oui - May 448 comments
by Oui - May 312 comments
by Oui - May 29 comments
by gmoke - May 1
by Oui - Apr 30242 comments
by Carrie - Apr 307 comments
by Oui - Apr 2830 comments
by Oui - Apr 2644 comments
by Oui - Apr 876 comments
by Oui - Mar 19143 comments