End of the road for Jörg Haider

DIETER NAGL/AFP/Getty Images

Austrian politician Jörg Haider did not have long to savor his triumph in one of the year's nastiest elections -- the far-right leader died this weekend in a car crash. Haider had been driving at more than twice the speed limit after leaving a nightclub when his car hit a concrete traffic barrier and flipped over several times. Haider's Alliance for the Future won 11 percent of the vote in the September elections, while the Freedom Party, led by his former protege Heinz-Christian Strache, captured 18 percent of the electorate.

Haider's death will likely help the far right consolidate its influence. Personal enmity between Haider and Strache prevented the two far-right parties from coordinating their efforts, and would have likely prevented them from participating together in a coalition government. With the Alliance for the Future deprived of its popular icon, the charismatic Strache has an opportunity to unite the far right under his leadership.

Haider's rise in the 1990s marked the resurgence of a potent political movement that played to anti-immigrant, often anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish fears. Even in death, he seems to be working for the advancement of this immoral cause.