Austria votes for tradition at polls

Date: 21/12/1995

By Thomas Klau

THE message from Austria's general election on Sunday is crystal clear: the country's voters have rejected radical change.

In a turnout that was massive despite bad weather and the Christmas season, Austrian voters substantially strengthened Chancellor Franz Vranitzky's Social Democrat SPÖ, while leaving the position of the Conservative ÖVP and the far-right Freedom Party virtually unchanged.

The election's big losers were the Greens, many of whose voters switched to Vranitzky's SPÖ in a probably successful attempt to defeat ÖVP leader Wolfgang Schüssel's bid for the chancellery.

An electorate angry at having been called back to the polls only a year after the last election still chose not to punish the ruling SVÖ-ÖVP coalition for their failure to agree on the 1996 budget.

By boosting the Social Democrats' share of the vote from 34.9&percent; to 38.3&percent;, many Austrians also signalled their deep attachment to their generous welfare state.

With his campaign to prepare Austria for monetary union in 1999 by slashing social expenditure, outgoing Foreign Minister Schüssel managed to increase his party's previous 27.7&percent; of the vote by only a paltry 0.6&percent;.

It would be wrong, however, to read the election result as a rejection of Austria's recent vote for European integration. Despite widespread disappointment with the benefits of EU membership so far, the two parties that openly opposed it - the Freedom Party and the ecologist Greens - did not do well in Sunday's poll.

The Freedom Party suffered its first electoral setback since the charismatic Jörg Haider took over the leadership in 1986, dropping from 22.5 to 22.1&percent; of the vote. The Greens fared worst, dwindling from a respectable 7.3&percent; to a mere 4.6&percent;, while the Liberals shrank from 6.0 to 5.3&percent;.

Despite an angry and sometimes aggressive electoral campaign, the two biggest parties are now widely expected to renew their fragile coalition the electorate so clearly endorsed. While Schüssel is undoubtedly one of the losers of the snap election that he chose to provoke, the ÖVP's negotiating position is not as weak as it might seem.

Technically, the Freedom Party and the Conservatives together command a parliamentary majority, an alternative Schüssel has consistently refused to rule out both before the election and since.

Few observers believe that the middle-of-the-road ÖVP would risk its international and domestic standing by entering into a fully-fledged alliance with Europe's biggest far-right party. But by keeping his options open, Schüssel has signalled to the triumphant Vranitzky that the renewal of their coalition will not be a Social Democrat walk-over.

January would be a month of intensive talks, Vranitzky announced after presenting his formal resignation to Austrian President Thomas Klestil this week and being immediately asked to form a new government. Schüssel, meanwhile, was stressing his party's readiness to negotiate with the SPÖ in a spirit of fairness and openness. The ball was now in the SPÖ's court, he said.

The task that brought the coalition down in October - the drafting of next year's budget and the reduction of a deficit currently exceeding 5&percent; of GDP - will be the first problem that the new Austrian government will have to tackle.

Since the ÖVP is ruling out tax increases to replenish the country's depleted coffers, painful spending cuts will be inevitable if Austria is to be amongst the founding members of monetary union in 1999.

The SPÖ is loath to agree to the slashing of a welfare state that has given Austria decades of stability and social consensus after a century that began with defeat, revolution, near civil war, dictatorship and occupation.

But observers believe that Vranitzky, who now has the chance to preside over Austria's fortunes until the end of the decade, will do his utmost to secure his country's participation from the first day of EMU onwards.

With his standing boosted by a vigorous election campaign that ended with a personal triumph, Vranitzky should find it easier than before to convince his reluctant party to swallow the harsh medicine of financial rectitude and Maastricht convergence.