Haider set to quit after election humiliation

A day after his far-right Freedom Party suffered a crushing defeat in Austria’s general election, Joerg Haider said he was planning to step down as governor of Carinthia province, hinting he would leave the political scene altogether.

Controversial Haider, who admired some of Adolf Hitler’s policies, said he would propose his plan to party leaders at a meeting later in the day and “try to achieve a consensus with them.”

Preliminary results released showed the conservative People’s Party of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel surging to gain 42% of the votes.

The Social Democrats, the strongest party in the last election, were relegated to second place with just under 37%, and the environmentalist Greens came fourth at around 9%, just behind the Freedom Party.

Haider, who resigned as party leader in May, said he has had enough of politics because, he explained: “If one has done reconstruction work for so many years and is presented with such a bill, one should know which decision to make for oneself.”

Although the Social Democrats and the People’s Party have in the past governed in a Grand Coalition, the renewal of their alliance seemed uncertain. Social Democratic leader Alfred Gusenbauer referred to his previous pledge to remain in the opposition unless his party came first.

The People’s Party win appeared due largely to the loss of popularity of Haider and his party, after months of infighting that forced popular moderates out of government and left it dominated by extreme right wingers loyal to Haider.

“Breathtaking,” Schuessel said of his party’s win. He refused to comment on his choice of coalition partners, saying he would enter talks with all other major parties

A renewed coalition between Schuessel’s conservatives and the Freedom Party seemed a likely option.

Voters weary of the status quo in 1999 embraced Haider and his establishment-bashing stance that Austria’s problems were caused by the corruption and favouritism of those in power.

When Haider’s party came to power in 1999, the EU imposed seven months of diplomatic sanctions on Austria, alarmed by his anti-foreigner stance, veiled slights of Jews and open admiration for some of Adolf Hitler’s policies. Israel withdrew its ambassador and still has not replaced him.

To broaden the party’s appeal and ease Austria’s isolation in Europe, Haider gave up the party leadership in May 2000 in favour of Susanne Riess-Passer, a moderate. Under her, the party claimed credit for its role in increasing social benefits to families with young children, balancing the budget and trimming union powers.

However, Carinthia, the province Haider has governed so far, seemed too small to contain his political ambitions.

Picking a fight over the government’s failure to cut taxes, he forced his party out of the coalition and left it again dominated by the anti-foreigner extremists that only the most loyal Haider fans appeared to have supported in the election.