Austria’s new government. The same peculiar team?

Date: 01/03/03

Though weaker than before, the far-right is likely to stay in government

“WHAT did we go to the polls for?” is the commonest question being asked by politically-minded Austrians. After all, it was almost six months ago that Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel and his centre-right People's Party ended their ruling partnership with the far-right Freedom Party, because the latter was being torn apart by feuds, largely over the role of its maverick behind-the-scenes leader, Jörg Haider. Hence Mr Schussel's decision to call a general election, which he handily won. Yet now, after three months of negotiating in vain with Social Democrats and Greens, he is poised to team up all over again with the Freedomites.

It would be false, however, to say that nothing has changed. For one thing, the same Europe-wide furore is unlikely to erupt as it did before, when all the European Union's other countries put Austria into diplomatic isolation because of the Freedom Party's apparent neo-Nazi taint. After all, governments in several other EU countries - including Italy, the Netherlands and Denmark - have since come to power with the support of parties on the post-fascist or populist right.

For another thing, the Freedomites are much diminished after their poorer showing in the last election, when they got only 10% of votes cast, compared with 27% in 1999, while Mr Schussel's party score went up from 27% to 42%. Moreover, Mr Haider himself now wields far less clout. Last time, though Mr Haider let Mr Schussel be chancellor, it was a coalition more or less of equals. This time the People's Party will be able to govern virtually on its own.

A few years ago the Freedom Party was probably Europe's most successful populist force on the continent. During the decade-plus when he ran it, Mr Haider managed to lift its vote from 5% to 27%. But, with his influence down, the main aim of his disgruntled colleagues is, it seems, to cling to whatever jobs in government they may be offered. Moreover, though many Freedom Party voters remain xenophobic and hostile to the EU, the party itself no longer threatens to veto the EU's enlargement to the east, nor could it do so if it tried.

Still, many Austrians, including many who voted for Mr Schussel's party, are annoyed by his decision to team up once again with the Freedomites. Both Alfred Gusenbauer, the Social Democrats' leader, and Alexander van der Bellen, who speaks for the Greens, sourly say that Mr Schussel never intended to forge an agreement with either of them. Most top businessmen would have preferred a resuscitation of the “grand coalition” of centre-left and centre-right that governed Austria from 1986 to 2000, when the Social Democrats were in the driver's seat and Mr Schussel's people were mainly passengers.

But Mr Schussel may have decided to stick to the Freedom Party precisely because it is divided and weak. In addition, he argues - with some cogency - that he and his finance minister, Karl-Heinz Grasser, a former Freedomite man who has now sided with Mr Schussel's party, are determined to shake up Austria's expensive pension and health-care systems, a task for which neither of Austria's parties on the left has much stomach. Only if Mr Schussel can force through such painful reforms will he have a chance of lightening Austrians' extremely heavy tax burden, which became even heavier during his first term.

Mr Haider may still try to hamstring the renewed coalition before it has got going again. He blames Mr Schussel for the decline in his fortunes, vilifies him at every turn, and would love to see him fail. But at the same time he is keen to stay on as governor of the southern province of Carinthia - and for that he needs the backing of Mr Schussel's party. That may be the price the chancellor will have to pay.