Haider's Party Downplays Protest
Joerg Haider's far-right Freedom Party dismissed Austria's biggest anti-government protest since World War Two as the work of leftist extremists.
About a quarter of a million people rallied in Vienna on Saturday to protest at the inclusion of the far-right in a coalition with Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's conservative People's Party, which took office just over two weeks ago.
"What took place yesterday was nothing more than a rather thin deployment of the Communist International with Austria's socialists," said Freedom Party parliamentary leader Peter Westenthaler in a statement.
In contrast to police estimates, which put the turnout at between 150,000 and 250,000 people, Westenthaler said only 60,000 had taken part. "If you take away the Communists from abroad, there is very little left," Westenthaler said.
Children and pensioners mingled with trade unionists, opposition parties, human rights groups and artists in Saturday's uncharacteristic display of political conviction in this staid capital of fewer than two million people.
Speakers accused Schuessel of placing his personal ambition to become chancellor above the good of the nation. His pact with Haider had divided Austria and led the country into international isolation, they said.
Alfred Gusenbauer, chairman-elect of the opposition Social Democrats, said it was his primary goal to break the parliamentary majority of the center-right government.
"The sooner this government resigns, the better it will be for the country," Gusenbauer told the Austrian Press Agency.
The Social Democrats, who dominated government for three decades, saw a coalition with the Greens as an option, but were also keen not "to burn the remaining bridges" to the People's Party, their coalition partner for the last 13 years, Gusenbauer said.
Haider, who is not a member of the new cabinet, has been the focus of protests because of his past praise of Adolf Hitler's employment policies and his description of Nazi Waffen SS veterans as men of good character.
His party's exploitation of anti-foreigner sentiment angers many Austrians and helped convince the country's 14 EU partners to freeze bilateral political ties with the new government.
The organisers of the peaceful rally, which was also called to denounce xenophobia and racism, said there were no immediate plans for a new protest, but were convinced the spontaneous demonstrations of the last two weeks would continue.
"The government has asked us to measure them by their deeds," Max Koch, spokesman for human rights group SOS Mitmensch, told Reuters. "We will be watching very closely and will work to end this lurch to the right as soon as possible."
He appealed to conservatives to speak out against the "coalition of shame."
But commentators say the mass demonstration completed a process of political polarisation, bringing abot the end of the post-war consensus that kept Austria largely free of social or industrial strife.
"After this Saturday on the Heldenplatz two large and opposing political camps have been finally formed," wrote Peter Rabl in Sunday's Kurier newspaper.
In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder branded Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider "undemocratic," and said Germany had to be vigilant to prevent the rise of a similar politician at home.
Stopping short of calling Haider a neo-fascist, Schroeder described him as a "right-wing populist" and criticized the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party for past comments about the Third Reich and foreigners.
"What he said about the SS and about foreigners expresses a kind of thinking which to me is undemocratic," Schroeder told the weekly Der Spiegel in an interview released ahead of publication on Monday.
Schroeder has said that, with Germany's opposition Christian Democrats struggling to come to terms with a funding scandal surrounding former chancellor Helmut Kohl, there is a danger of a Haider-style figure capturing right-wing support at home.
"I don't want Haider to become a German problem," Schroeder said. "The people who watch us are not so much afraid of Haider in Austria as of Germany failing clearly to distance itself from him."
Schroeder also made it clear he was not taking a swipe at the Italian right when he said Europe would have to intervene if neo-fascists joined a future government in Rome. The remarks, which were interpreted in Italy as referring to the participation of Gianfranco Fini's hard-right National Alliance in the 1994 coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, sparked a storm of protest from Italian leaders.
In Russia, meanwhile, several hundred demonstrators have marched through downtown Moscow in a show of a support for Haider. The Extreme Right National Front, a little known political group, organized the rally to demand a stop to what they say is a campaign of lies directed at Haider.
Officially, Russia has taken a cautious line towards the Austrian controversy, avoiding direct criticism of Haider. Last week Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters that he believed in Austrian democracy.