Jörg Haider: Encyclopedia II - Jörg Haider - FPÖ chairman

Jörg Haider - FPÖ chairman

Jörg Haider - Haider as opposition leader

Under Haider's leadership, the FPÖ moved to the far right, reflecting Haider's nationalist, anti-immigration, and anti-EU views. Haider especially used populism (see below) to advance his interests. From 1986 when Haider became the FPÖ's chairman the party's share in elections rose from 5% in the 1986 elections to almost 27% in 1999.

With Haider practically leading the FPÖ single-handedly, he was able to unite the scattered, divided extreme-right in Austria and establish a party that was not so much founded on leading personalities or an ideology but on just one leader - Haider himself, who used to change his opinions frequently. His style to govern the party became rather authorative in the following years, however his followers did not challenge his ultimate authority in the party, especially because Haider was able to gain one victory after another in elections. [9] An exception was the split off by the Liberal Forum in the mid-1990s headed by Heide Schmidt, a long-time political supporter of Haider and the FPÖ's candidate for presidency in 1992. The liberals initially gained the support of about 6 % of the voters nationwide, but Schmidt was not able to uphold this support and the Liberal Forum subsequently dropped out of parliament in 1999.

The party's mixture of populism, anti-establishment and nationalist themes steadily gained support over the years. Additional to voters in the extreme-right corner of the population the FPÖ was able to attracted protest voters from every political corner regardless of prior affiliation with the two major other parties (from both the Social Democrats and the Conservatives) in general and regional elections in the 1990s. Alongside to those who were fed up with decades of government by the 'Great Coalition' (See also: Proporz.) Haider always had the unconditional backup of the core far-right voters due to the lack of any outspoken far-right parties which are forbidden under the Anti-Nazi Laws.

Jörg Haider - Coalition government with Wolfgang Schüssel's People's party

In 2000, Haider's Freedom Party and the People's Party joined to form a coalition government. This caused widespread outrage both in Austria and the rest of Europe. The heads of government of the other fourteen EU members decided to cease cooperation with the Austrian government, as it was felt in many countries that the cordon sanitaire against coalitions with parties considered as right-wing extremists, which had mostly held in Western Europe since 1945, had been breached. For several months, other national leaders refused to shake hands and socialize with members of the Schüssel government. This was described as "sanctions" by representatives of the ÖVP and FPÖ, and supporters of the government often blamed social democrats and President Thomas Klestil for them, and questioned their loyalty to the country. The EU leaders soon saw that their measures were counterproductive and returned to normality during the summer of 2000, even though the coalition remained unchanged. (See Austria legislative election, 1999.) Nevertheless it is not easy to measure effects of the "sanctions". Short-term effects seemed to be counterproductive, but it is still possible that "sanctions" later helped to decrease the popularity of Freedom Party and also to prevent such coalitions in other EU countries.

At the end of 2000, Jörg Haider stepped down from the leadership of the Freedom Party. This was widely regarded as a cynical move to appease foreign criticism, as he appeared to continue to control the party from behind the scenes, with Susanne Riess-Passer who was the following party chairwoman being only pro-forma in charge. Haider proclaimed that his move was just the fulfillment of his promise to Carinthian FPÖ voters he gave prior to the Carinthian election that had been held in the same year. ([10]])

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "FPÖ chairman", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki