VIENNA: As far-right parties have topped polls across Europe in recent years, nationalist politicians have taken the helm of four parliaments, stirring controversy.
Czech lawmakers elected the country’s first-ever far-right parliament speaker on Wednesday, becoming the latest parliament in Europe to be headed by a nationalist and pro-Russian politician since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
One day after Czech far-right leader Tomio Okamura — who has called for an end to aid for Ukraine — was elected parliament speaker, he ordered the removal of the Ukrainian flag from the building, where it had been hoisted in solidarity.
Austrian historians this week also urged the Alpine country’s first far-right parliamentary speaker to call off a planned event on November 11 that “honors a declared antisemite,” the late politician Franz Dinghofer, Austria’s vice chancellor in the 1920s and a Nazi party member during World War II.
In Italy, Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, nationalist politicians have won the parliamentary presidency, joining Hungary, where nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party has held the post since 2010.
