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Muslim Runs In Austrian Elections
VIENNA, March 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An Austrian Muslim said Thursday he hoped to be the first Muslim to be elected to Vienna's parliament when voters go to polls on Sunday, prompting thousands of Austrian Muslims to say they are ready to practice their long-forgotten political rights against a tide of rising hatred against immigrants.
"Eighty percent of eligible Muslim voters wouldn't normally vote in elections," said Omar al-Rawi, who would be running on a Socialist Democratic Party ticket. "Once they heard that a Muslim [Rawi himself] is running, they said they may consider starting to deal with the tough political situation here."
Muslims, among other minorities and immigrants, have been increasingly faced with a wave of hate rhetoric from Austrian rightwing parties, particularly from the Freedom Party, who is fighting hard to avoid a new ballot defeat.
Rawi's participation, unprecedented by a Muslim in this European country, comes after right-wing parties targeted Muslims in Austrian political life with many calls bluntly raised that Muslims should be thrown out of the country.
"At a time when there are parties that seek to limit Austrian Muslim rights, I think Muslims should be flooding polling stations," Rawi said.
Rawi said his candidacy serves many purposes. He said that Austrian parties would compete to try to win votes of Muslims, for one thing, and would also strengthen Muslim rights to debate national issues.
Meanwhile, Austria's far-right leader Joerg Haider stepped up campaigning for his embattled Freedom Party ahead of Sunday's local ballots in Vienna where it faces a possible new defeat.
Sunday's ballots are widely expected to return Social Democrat mayor Michael Hauepl to Vienna City Hall, which his party has held for over a century. But all eyes are on the score of Joerg Haider's far-righters.
The Vienna polls, which come over a year after the Freedom Party joined a national coalition sparking unprecedented EU sanctions, are seen as a key test of whether the Freedom Party can maintain its support while in government.
Their backing has dwindled dramatically since the heady days of October 1999 when Haider redrew the country's political landscape. Last year, the Freedom Party suffered embarrassing defeats in two provincial ballots.
Haider does not want a repeat in Vienna. And to that end his party has unashamedly made immigration an essential rallying cry.
"Foreigners: I understand the concern of the Viennese people," reads one Freedom Party plastered all over town of late, under the blue-eyed, blond face of Helene Partik-Pable, the far-right's mayoral candidate.
Haider, who resigned as party chief and withdrew to his southern fiefdom of Carinthia after the Freedomites took government office, has returned to the campaign fray in Vienna - no solace for immigrants.
Turkish-born Nermin Ortaci insists the far-right poses a real threat to immigrants.
"Haider is playing with people and that is dangerous," says the 44-year-old mother of two, who has lived in Austria for 17 years and whose children were born there.
Like many Gastarbeiter, or guest workers, she came to Austria in the 1980s, and with her butcher husband, Hamdi, has worked her way up through hard work, to reach a comfortable level within society.
"The thing is, we do work hard, we pay our taxes. So it makes us bitter to be treated like this," she sighs.
From its glory days as center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, through the Communist era as the frontline against the Iron Curtain, to the influx of ex-Yugoslav refugees in the 1990s, Vienna has a long multi-ethnic history.
Immigrants now make up some 20% of the city's 1 million-plus population. And it is precisely this which makes anti-foreigner attacks such a potent vote-catcher. The latest polls give Haider 23%-25% of the vote.
Some in Austria, however, are hoping for a reaction against the far right's inflammatory rhetoric. "More immigrants will vote this time. I think since the national elections they realize it is important. It has mobilized people," said Niyazi Oguz of the Turkish-Austria Friendship Union.
Quds Press contributed to this report
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