Haider's far right party suffer losses in Austria
The conservative party of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel surged to emerge strongest from general elections in Austria today, according to preliminary results that showed a pounding at the polls for the party of right-wing Joerg Haider.
With just over 35% of the votes counted, Schuessel’s People’s Party captured over 43%, a more than 16 percentage-point increase over its last showing at the polls in 1999, according to the results released by the state television.
Haider’s Freedom Party, the government coalition partners of Schuessel’s conservatives, stood at just over 10%, down almost two-thirds from the 27% it captured in the last elections.
The Social Democrats also gained but appeared to have been outpaced by the People’s Party.
They were listed at just over 36%, about three percentage points more than in the 1999 elections.
The environmentalist Greens stood at around 8%, little changed from their results two years ago, the preliminary results showed.
Final official results were expected later today. If the figures remain unchanged the People’s Party surge would reflect the strongest gains by any party since the end of the Second World War.
Conversely, the Freedom Party losses, if confirmed by the final results, represent the largest drop in popularity of any party since the end of the war.
If the final results confirm the People’s Party in first place, that would put them above the Socialists in terms of popularity for the first time since 1966.
Despite their poor showing, however, the Freedom Party remained in position to extend its government role into the next legislative period.
Although the Social Democrats and the People’s Party have buried differences in the past to govern in a “Grand Coalition,” it was unclear whether the Social Democrats could opt to again cooperate with their traditional rivals.
Their leader, Alfred Gusenbauer, had expressed confidence that his party would win at the polls, and it was unlikely that he would allow the People’s Party to dictate coalition terms from a much stronger position.
With political differences great and mutual suspicions strong between the Greens and the People’s Party, that left a renewed coalition between the Schuessel’s conservatives and Haider’s rightist a likely option.
Haider, casting his vote in Klagenfurt, capital of the southern Carinthia province he governs had defied predictions his party – left in shambles after months of infighting between rightist supporters and moderates – would do badly.
“There will be no (Freedom Party) crash,” the Austria Press Agency cited him as saying.
But some of those preparing to vote under slate-grey skies in Vienna today were clearly bent on depriving the Freedom Party of another term in power.
“I can only prevent a coalition that includes the Freedom Party by backing the Greens,” said Barbara Steiner, 32.
When Haider’s party came to power in 1999, the European Union imposed seven months of diplomatic sanctions on Austria, alarmed by then-party leader Haider’s anti-foreigner stance, veiled slights of Jews and open admiration for some of Adolf Hitler’s policies.
Israel recalled its ambassador and hasn’t yet returned him.
But EU officials now concede that sanctions were a mistake that only strengthened Haider among those convinced that the rest of the world was against them and that Austria was being punished for making a democratic choice.
The Freedom Party’s success turned out to be the harbinger of a trend in Europe that saw right-wingers and anti-immigration mavericks make gains in France, the Netherlands, Denmark and elsewhere.
But the Haider-instigated infighting – which led to resignations of several popular Freedom Party ministers from government and Schuessel’s call for elections more than a year ahead of schedule – left the party in chaos.
Some 5.9 million Austrians were eligible to vote for the 183-seat national parliament.
