Austria: Haider founds new right wing party

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Haider bolts Freedom Party

Monday, April 4, 2005

Associated Press

Vienna ?- Joerg Haider and his supporters broke from the once-powerful Freedom Party on Monday to form a new movement meant to reflect the former rightist's turn toward relative moderation.

Mr. Haider's sister, Ursula Haubner, announced the move at a news conference, at which she resigned as head of the Freedom Party. Mr. Haider then told reporters he would head the new party, the Union for the Future of Austria.

The move was sparked by insults of the Freedom Party leadership by its detractors, Mr. Haider told reporters, without going into details.

The new party would avoid "paying homage to ideological idols," he said in an allusion to the powerful rightist wing of the Freedom Party and the weeks of struggle between rightists and moderates grouped around him that lead to Monday's split.

Source

According to latest news, it might be possible that there will be new elections in Austria.

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Haider represents the moderate wing of the party? How did that happen?

If Haider is a moderate, I'd hate to see what the extremists look like.

Walter Hinteler wrote:

According to latest news, it might be possible that there will be new elections in Austria.

The new Black-Orange coalition -- OeVP and BZOe (the Haider faction) -- will still have a working majority in the lower house of parliament. It will, however, lack a majority in the upper house. That may require new elections, but then that's the situation in Germany too, isn't it?

http://images.derstandard.at/20050405/a(13).jpg

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According to latest news, it might be possible that there will be new elections in Austria.

Right now it doesn't look like it. Evil or Very Mad

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Quote:

Sunday, 17 April, 2005,
Haider party launched in Austria

Far-right politician Joerg Haider has launched a new party in Austria after a split in the Freedom Party he once led which threatened the ruling coalition.
The new Alliance for Austria's Future elected Mr Haider as its leader in Salzburg, and it looks set to remain in office with the majority conservatives.

All Freedom Party cabinet ministers have defected to the new party.

The split came after the party, whose extreme views prompted EU sanctions on Austria, lost much of its support.

A recent opinion poll gave the Alliance 5% support and just 3% to the rump Freedom Party. Under Mr Haider, the Freedom Party had taken nearly 27% in the 1999 general election.

The BBC's Bethany Bell notes that while Mr Haider showed he still has considerable personal appeal with voters when he was re-elected as governor of the southern province of Corinthia last year, surveys nationwide suggest many Austrians mistrust him.

Election call

Of the Freedom party's 18 members in parliament, nine have reportedly joined the Alliance while seven remain with the old party and two are undecided.

Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, leader of the conservative People's Party, said he had received sufficient guarantees to work with the new Alliance.

However, opposition parties are demanding a new election, with the Social Democrats arguing that Austria, which is due to assume leadership of the European Union for six months on 1 January 2006, cannot afford an unstable government.

"Imagine what would happen if the government imploded just before or, worse, during Austria's presidency," Social Democrat leader Alfred Gusenbauer said at a party conference in Vienna.

Austria is not due to hold its next general election until next year.

In a two-hour speech in Salzburg, Mr Haider justified the creation of the new party, saying that "internal criticism" had hindered the success of the Freedom Party, AFP news agency reports.

The 564 delegates present also elected Vice-Chancellor Hubert Gorbach to a party leadership post.

Mr Haider, who won notoriety for his comments on Austria's Nazi past, is not a member of the coalition government himself.

Source

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Sunday elections in the Austrian state of Carinthia are likely to leave Hitler-admiring Haider as local anomaly ... says at least the Guardian:

End of an era looms for far right populist Haider

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24 hours from now we will know more.

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Walter's Source wrote:

. . . to form a new movement meant to reflect the former rightist's turn toward relative moderation.

I go along with Joe on this one, "relative moderation?" I suppose that, relatively speaking, the Mamluks were not as savagely violent as the Mongols. I suspect, though, that one wouldn't have wished to have offended either one. I'd be interested to know if Walter and Ul think that Austrians tend to hold "right-wing" opinions.

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Personally I think that Austrians are more to the right than e.g. the Germans.

Stop! No wrong conclusions: this is only due to the fact that's an obeservation of my wife's and my Austrian mischpoke (some handful of the closest relatives from both of us are [now] Austrians) :wink:

They are more rightish ... up to Haider-likers.

I really don't know about the general Austrian trend by own experience and knowledge.

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I think that many Austrians are more conservative.

From my experience you see a difference between rural parts ( especially Upper Austria, Styria, Tyrol) and cities.

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My experiences are only from Lower Austria (just acroos the border to Vienna :wink: ) and Styria.

Well, let's wait who joins whom in a coalition ....

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At 5 pm the first extrapolation will be announced.

There are already rumors that Blue is strong- Lower Austria.
Crying or Very sad

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Yeap, heard that in the news (they've got 15% in Vienna in state elections previously, right?).

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14.8% - that was a minus of 5.3%.

This might interest you-
Link

Sorry, this link is in German, couldn't find a translation.

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According to first poll expansions (polls ended 10 mins ago) the Social-Democrats are in lead! Closely followed by the conservatives (they got great losses); then the Free Democrats, follewd by the Greens and second (new, smaller) rightish-liberal party BP?-.

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Well, unfortunately these first trends are still very vague.
Based mostly on exit polls.
No data from Vienna until now. And this time we have had a lot of voting by letter, these are about 6%. This could change the result.
Last time most of these voters vote for ?-VP or Greens.
BUT it looks good for now.

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As of now:

SP?-: 35,8 %
?-VP: 34,5 %
FP?-: 11,1 %
Grüne: 10,3 %
BZ?-: 4,1 %
MATIN: 2,8 %
KP?-: 1,1 %

Haider's party seems to be on second place in Carinthia

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BZ?- missed the "Grundmandat" in Carinthia.
There is still hope that they might not pass the 4%
hurdle. But with 4.28% I doubt it. Still the vote by letters are not yet counted.

Vienna

?-VP 20,65% ( minus 10)
Sp?- 42,25%
FP?- 14,54% ( plus 7%)
Grüne 17,02%
BZ?- 1,83%
KP?- 1,26%
Matin 2,23%

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http://www.kurier.at/nachrichten/wahl/data/mandate-2002.png

Preliminary results show that the SP?- (68 Mandaten) and Greens (20) together will have only 88 seats in the lower house, 4 seats short of a majority. The right-wing parties will have 95 seats (?-VP - 66, FP?- - 21, BV?- - 8). But it doesn't look like they'll want to form a black-blue-orange coalition. If that's the case, then there will either be a minority government or, more likely, a grand coalition like the one currently in place in Germany (Austria has had those before).

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We have to wait for the official result- if the BZ?- ( who gained more than 25% in Carinthia, Haider's homeland) fails the 4% hurdle after counting all vote cards, then the 8 seats belonging to this party have to be distributed among the other parties.

Chancellor Schüssel, the leader of the ?-VP said they are not right, but in the center. Sometimes it is difficult to place them.

Wikipedia-?-VP

I hope there will be no coalition with FP?- and BZ?-.
I am still surprised that the populist Strache gained so much.

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It's very interesting to see how the FP?- not only managed to survive the schism that split the party into two factions (the FP?- and the Haider-led BZ?-), but actually drew more votes than it did in the previous election. Indeed, combining the FP?- and BZ?- vote totals shows that support for these "liberal" parties increased by about 50% in comparison to 2002. According to Der Standard, close to half of FP?- voters had voted for the SP?- and ?-VP in the previous election, which helps to explain the miserable showing of the Volkspartei.

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Austria: Haider founds new right wing party

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