Austria Swings Right

The conservative party of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel registered sizable gains to emerge strongest from general elections Sunday, according to preliminary results that showed a pounding at the polls for the party of rightist Joerg Haider.

With about 35 percent of the votes counted, Schuessel's People's Party captured more than 43 percent, an increase of 16 percentage-point over its last showing at the 1999 polls, according to the results released by the state television.

Haider's Freedom Party stood at just over 10 percent, down almost two-thirds from the 27 percent it captured in the last elections.

The Social Democrats also gained but appeared to have been outpaced by the People's Party. They were listed at just over 36 percent.

The environmentalist Greens stood at around 8 percent, the preliminary results showed.

Final official results were expected later Sunday. If the figures remain unchanged the People's Party surge would reflect the strongest gains by any party since the end of World War II. Conversely, the Freedom Party losses, if confirmed by the final results, represent the largest drop in popularity of any party since the war.

Despite their poor showing, however, the Freedom Party remained in position to extend its government role into the next legislative period.

Although the Social Democrats and the People's Party have buried differences in the past to govern in a "Grand Coalition," it was unclear whether the Social Democrats could opt to again cooperate with their traditional rivals.

Their leader, Alfred Gusenbauer, had expressed confidence that his party would win at the polls, and it was unlikely that he would allow the People's Party to dictate coalition terms from a much stronger position.

Political differences and mutual suspicions between the Greens and the People's Party left a renewed coalition between the Schuessel's conservatives and Haider's rightist group a likely option.

Haider, casting his vote in Klagenfurt, capital of the southern Carinthia province he governs, had defied predictions his party — left in shambles after months of infighting between rightist supporters and moderates — would do badly.

"There will be no (Freedom Party) crash," the Austria Press Agency cited him as saying.

But some of those preparing to vote under slate-gray skies in Vienna Sunday were clearly bent on depriving the Freedom Party another term in office.

"I can only prevent a coalition that includes the Freedom Party by backing the Greens," said Barbara Steiner, 32.

When Haider's party came to power in 1999, the European Union 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 recalled its ambassador and hasn't yet returned him.

But EU officials now concede that sanctions were a mistake that only strengthened Haider among those convinced that the rest of the world was against them and that Austria was being punished for making a democratic choice.

The Freedom Party's success turned out to be the harbinger of a trend in Europe that saw right-wingers and anti-immigration mavericks make gains in France, the Netherlands, Denmark and elsewhere.

But the Haider-instigated infighting — which led to resignations of several popular Freedom Party ministers from government and Schuessel's call for elections more than a year ahead of schedule — left the party in chaos.

Some 5.9 million Austrians were eligible to vote for the 183-seat national parliament.