What makes you Identify with the Party you do?

[Cranberry]

Basically it is a lack of alternatives that makes me support the Austrian Greens. Of the horrible bunch that are the politcal parties in Austria, the Greens are the ones that I least detest, if I may say so.

Starting with the two big parties, SPÖ and ÖVP, that could, if you want to, be considered one big party (only significant difference - the one is ruled by the mayor of Vienna, the other is controlled by the Governor of Lower Austria), because they are an ideology-less, delusioned from reality mess that claim to be a political power and still scores results around the 25% percent (and they are considered the two major parties!) only precisely because there is a large group of 60+ people that vote red or black because they always did so. The only thing they are better at than pottering around this country and securing jobs for their former functionaries in semi-statal companies is staying in power, and this very efficiently so - the ÖVP is the European party that has the longest continious streak of forming part of a government - since 1986!

The main problem here is however, the main alternative to those two parties is even more horrible - I speak of no less than the notorious FPÖ, your friendly neighbourhood neo-Nazis. Need I to say more? (Yes, that when they were in power, they were doing an even worse job than the two above mentioned parties - ever heard of HYPO Alpe Adria?)

This leaves us with the Greens and the NEOS, problem just that the latter is a liberal (in the European sense) party, so not much more than the ÖVP without the baggage of 70 years and farmer associations - obviously not the choice you would expect from a red-avatar wearing Atlasian (then again, looking at the Democratic Party's programs...). Since the mayfly-parties that plague Austria in a regular rhythm (LIF, BZÖ, Team Stronach...) are mostly no more than a personal vehicle or of any other horrible quality, and I see no real reason to support a one-percent party, this does leave me with the Greens. Given, I do like their (on paper) stances against corruption - the only real party than can credibly tackle this problem - on environmental, social and also most economic issues. On paper, the Greens of Austria are objectively not bad. Put this into reality however - they form part of the government in six of the nine Austrian states - you have a party that in exchange for one tiny little point that comes good to their base sells its soul to guarantee either ÖVP or SPÖ five years of government as if they had an absolute majority... Welcome to Austria...