Austrian chancellor calls for early vote to end crisis

CHANCELLOR Wolfgang Schuessel yesterday called for early elections to end a government crisis triggered by the resignation of four key leaders of the rightist Freedom Party, the junior partner in his coalition.

Schuessel told a news conference said he would propose holding elections “at the earliest possible date,” saying Austria “needs a stable government.”

Government officials said elections could be held in November. The next elections had been scheduled for September 2003.

Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer; Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser and the party’s parliamentary speaker, Peter Westenthaler, stepped down on Sunday. Transport Minister Mathias Reichhold followed them yesterday.

The four said they resigned because of a conflict with far-rightist Joerg Haider, a former party leader known for past comments defending the Hitler era. He serves as governor of the southern Carinthia province.

Riess-Passer, who also stepped down as the Freedom Party’s leader, said the conflict made it impossible for the party to work effectively.

“These intra-party disagreements have crippled the party and have seriously hurt the trust of the voters,” she said. “It’s my view that this is the only honest way to go.”

The resignations did not break apart the Freedom Party’s coalition with Schuessel’s centre right People’s Party. But politicians on all sides said the upheaval within the Freedom Party made a new mandate from the voters a necessity.

Haider called for new elections, saying they were “a duty to the voter.” The resignations appeared to be a victory for Haider, who once helped bring his party members to power but since then has become critical of their work. Maria Rauch-Kallat, general secretary of the People’s Party, told Austrian state television yesterday that she regretted that a government that “has really changed a lot in Austria” was in jeopardy, citing pension and labour law reforms as achievements.

“We would like to continue with this project, but if that's not possible, we have to ask the voters what they want,” she said. Alfred Gusenbauer, leader of the opposition Social Democrats, declared that the resignations meant “the end of the black-blue experiment,” referring to the party colours of the People’s Party and the Freedom Party.

The People’s Party and Freedom Party coalition took power in early 2000, following months of attempts to form a government after the last elections in October 1999.