Heinz, what is going on in Austria?? Is history repeating itself??
telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000387808654031&rtmo=awRwRspL&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/99/10/4/waus04.html
AUSTRIA'S Freedom Party was poised last night to take second
place in the general election in the best showing by a far-Right
party in Europe since the Second World War.
The result of votes cast yesterday
gave the ruling Social Democrats 33
per cent, down from 38 per cent in
1995, the Freedom Party 27.22 per
cent, up from 21, and the
conservative People's Party, the
junior partner in the ruling coalition,
26.9 per cent, down from 28.3 per
cent. Some 200,000 postal votes
have been registered and the final
result may not be known until
Thursday. The election has thrown
Austria's traditional political
landscape into confusion and prompted a frenetic bout of
horsetrading on forming a new government.
The negotiations over the next few weeks could see Jörg Haider,
the Freedom Party leader who has praised Hitler and described
former SS soldiers as decent men, in government. If he teams up
with the Conservatives he could even become Chancellor.
Political analysts say the two most likely options are a
Conservative coalition with the Freedom Party that would put
Mr Haider in control, or a continuation of the coalition of
Socialists and Conservatives.
But most predict that if the two partners do link up again the
alliance will be so badly weakened that it will not last another
four-year term. Both the Socialist and Conservative leaders ruled
out an alliance with the Freedom Party in advance of the
election, but if both were replaced, their successors would be
free to re-start negotiations.
Wolfgang Schuessel, the leader of the People's Party, said he
still believed they could regain their number two position when
the postal votes were counted.
Haim |
