Austria - 1999 Election National Council
Austria is a constitutional democracy with a federal parliamentary form of government. Citizens choose their representatives in periodic, free, and fair multiparty elections. The judiciary is independent. The Constitution provides citizens with the right to change their government peacefully. Citizens exercise this right in practice through periodic, free, and fair elections held on the basis of universal suffrage. National elections were held on October 3, in which the Social Democrats won 65 seats in Parliament; the Freedom Party, 52; and the People's Party 52. Negotiations on forming a new coalition government were underway at the end of 1999.
Since the previous (December 1995) general elections, Mr. Viktor Klima had replaced Mr. Franz Vranitzky as Federal Chancellor (Head of the Council of Ministers) in January 1997; both belonged to the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), which had ruled in coalition with the People's Party (ÖVP) since 1987.
As in the past, these two groups were mainly opposed by the Freedom Party (FPÖ) led, since 1986, by Mr. Jörg Haider. During the campaign, this far-right group stepped up its anti-foreigner rhetoric. Besides advocating a freeze on immigration, it called for tougher action against crime, a flat 23% income tax rate and more state aid for Austrian families with children; it also opposed enlargement of the European Union to neighboring countries. Led by Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel, the conservative ÖVP, for its part, favoured a pro-European Union and NATO orientation and free-market economic reform, while the SPÖ sided with traditional Austrian neutrality and maintaining a strong state control over the economy.
Chaired by a former Nazi functionary and SS officer, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) has taken a controversial path through the decades. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) was founded in 1956 as a Germanic national liberal party with close associations to the Nazis. Its first two chairmen were former SS officers: Anton Reinthaller (1956-58) and Friedrich Peter (1958-78). The following decades saw the the FPÖ veer politically from the extreme-right towards the center and back again until it adopted a far-right, anti-elite and populist party platform from 1986 onward.
The FPÖ scored its biggest political victory in 1999 when it won 26.9% of the vote in nationwide legislative elections. On polling day, the FPÖ captured 12 extra seats to pull even with the ÖVP for second place in the National Council. It thus closed the gap with the SPÖ, which made its worst showing in years by losing six seats to end up with 65.
Four months after the elections, at the beginning of February 2000, FPÖ leader Jörg Haider made a deal with the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) to form a coalition government. The inclusion of members of a far right party provoked a general outrage a number of countries, including the 14 other EU Member States, ostracised the country diplomatically.
The son of Austrian Nazi Party members, Haider had become leader of the FPÖ youth movement in 1970 and nine years later, the party's youngest delegate to parliament. By 1986, he was espousing nationalist, anti-immigration and anti-EU views as head of the party. The 2000 coalition agreement was the first time a party with Nazi origins had become part of a European government since the end of World War II.
Chancellor Schüssel (ÖVP) did his best to avoid criticism of the antics of his coalition partner, the FPÖ. The recent visit of FPÖ founder Jörg Haider with Saddam Hussein and the party's anti-foreigner and anti-Semitic propaganda during the Vienna election campaign -- made going the course with the current government politically untenable.
The coalition deal triggered an unprecedented response from the European Union. Portugal, then holder of the EU's rotating presidency, said the other 14 EU states would refuse bilateral contacts with Vienna, not back any Austrian candidate seeking a position in an international organization and only receive Austrian ambassadors "at a technical level" if the FPÖ joined a new government in Austria.
"If a party which has expressed xenophobic views, and which does not abide by the essential values of the European family, comes to power, naturally we won't be able to continue the same relations as in the past, however much we regret it," said then Portuguese prime minister and now head of the UN, Antonio Guterres. "Nothing will be as before," he wrote. Under the 1997 Amsterdam treaty, an EU member state can be suspended if it is in "serious and persistent breach" of the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.
Because the FPÖ had received a larger share of the vote than the ÖVP, Haider had been in line to become Austrian chancellor. But strong international pressure convinced both parties to give the chancellor post to the ÖVP. Haider stepped down as FPÖ chief in February 2000.
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