Nationalists and Populists (III)

Nationalists and Populists (III)

Written by Alfonso Elizondo

The most important political debate at present is about the extent to which far-right parties are democratic. Although they use the rules of the democratic game and are legal representatives of democracy, most of them seek to dissociate themselves from violent, fascist or radical right-wing parties.

We may recall that in Germany voters were forbidden to participate in events of the Islamophobic party, and Marine le Pen distanced herself from her father because he made some controversial statements about the gas chambers used by the Third Reich, so much so that she changed the name of her father’s original party, the National Front, to the National Rally (Rassemblement National).

Experts believe that the greatest danger to the far right is not their percentage of the national vote, but the fact that the traditional centrist parties will copy their discourse and political agenda so that they may end up developing restrictive policies and cast doubt on whether there are rights for all.

In fact, several countries, such as the United States, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania, refused to adopt the United Nations Migration Pact in December 2018, while 70 years ago no state would consider refusing to sign a world treaty.