Austria Politics

The conservative junior partner in the coalition government, the Austrian People's Party, decided to become an opposition party, a move that may lead to instability and elections next year. In a failed effort to prevent the far-right Freedom Party of Joerg Haider from entering the government in a coalition, the Social Democrats had urged the People's Party to not join the opposition. Final results confirmed that the Freedom Party finished second.

The far-right Freedom Party, whose leader once praised the economic accomplishments of Adolf Hitler, soared in Sunday's general elections to become Austria's second-strongest political force and cripple the grand coalition that has ruled this nation for 13 years.

Joerg Haider, the telegenic rising star of Austrian right-wing politics, was touring Los Angeles' Simon Wiesenthal Center when he spotted his own picture on the wall--alongside the likes of Idi Amin and David Duke. He was outraged. Haider called on a fellow Austrian, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to use his influence to get the picture removed, but to no avail. The photograph remained, and Haider lost this skirmish in his battle to change his image abroad as he climbs to power at home.

The party led by a right-wing populist who once praised the work ethic of Nazi Germany won 23% of the vote in Austria's federal elections Sunday, handing two moderate parties that have governed for four decades their worst setback since World War II. The charismatic Joerg Haider and his Freedom Party remained in the No.

After six years of diplomatic isolation under Kurt Waldheim, Austrians voted Sunday for a new president to usher their neutral Alpine country into the European Community. None of the four candidates won the absolute majority necessary for victory, and a runoff election between the two front-runners was scheduled for May 24. Social Democrat Rudolf Streicher, 53, the ex-transport minister and an orchestra conductor in his free time, finished first with 40.8% of the vote.

Along the cobbled promenade of old Vienna's pedestrian quarter, a young girl playing Mozart on her violin blissfully ignores the Andean Indians playing guitars and pan flutes a few yards away. Tweedy old women in sensible hats weave their dachshunds past leather-clad adolescents on skateboards. The springtime is fragile here, bright one moment and brooding the next.

A far-right party whose leader has praised German Third Reich labor policies and promised to protect "Austria for the Austrians" won a surprising 23% of the vote in Vienna city elections Sunday. The Freedom Party of Austria posted its third electoral gain in as many months by capitalizing on anti-foreigner and anti-Semitic sentiments that have flooded across Austria with the influx of refugees from war-torn and economically devastated areas of Eastern Europe.

The Austrian Socialist Party won an easy victory in general elections Sunday and appeared poised to retain the chancellor's post, while a small right-wing party made dramatic gains at the expense of the Socialists' conservative coalition partner. Despite recent opinion polls showing the Socialists were losing popularity, the party won 81 seats, a net gain of one, to remain the largest faction in the 183-seat National Assembly, unofficial returns showed.

Americans may be surprised these days to see campaign posters on the walls in the Austrian capital declaring in German: "Vienna Should Not Become Chicago." To anyone visiting this elegant seat of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, it seems a far-fetched concern. The closest thing to the Chicago's Sears Tower is the 404-foot Gothic steeple of St. Stephen's Cathedral. The only Bears here are in the zoo and there are no El trains, although there is a spotlessly clean subway system.

Austria holds parliamentary elections Sunday against a backdrop of heavy anti-foreigner sentiment. The two mainstream parties that have ruled Austria since 1955--the Socialists and the Christian Democratic Austrian People's Party--have been put on the defensive by the small Freedom Party, which has made gains with its anti-crime, anti-immigrant platform.