Habsburg emperor’s great-nephew fights to rule Austria again
31st March 2010
Dr Ulrich Habsburg-Lothringen is barred from running for Austria’s presidency by his country’s republican constitution, drawn up when the last Habsburg Emperor Charles I was forced to abdicate power in 1918.
Dr Habsburg, who has three children and six grandchildren, is angry that he and his descendants are discriminated against while candidates with a Nazi past, such as Kurt Waldheim, Austria’s president between 1986 and 1992, are not.
Not an unreasonable position.
A member of the environmentalist Green party since 1987, in a province governed for years by the far-right, Dr Habsburg has little in common with his imperial ancestors who once ruled much of Europe.
Oh, boy, just what we need – another blue-blood kook. To hell with him.