Freedom Party of Austria

The Austrian Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, abbreviated to FPÖ) is an Austrian political party formerly associated with the name of Jörg Haider, who is no longer a party member. Its current leader is Heinz-Christian Strache. The FPÖ is generally regarded as a populist party and often classed as a Euronationalist party. It promises stronger anti-immigration laws, stricter law enforcement and more funds for families.

In April 2005, Jörg Haider and other leading party members seceded from the FPÖ to form a new party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ).

Origins and history

The Freedom Party was founded in 1955 and had its roots in the Pan German movement, which included both elements of liberalism and nationalism. It absorbed the political currents of former parties such as the Landbund and the Greater German People's Party of the First Republic. Its immediate predecessor was the Federation of Independents (Verband der Unabhängigen – VdU), which had obtained 12% of the electorate in 1949 but later collapsed after internal strife.

Even though many of the FPÖ's leading proponents such as Anton Reinthaller and Friedrich Peter were former Nazis, as a third party it had a broad appeal among voters who felt uncomfortable both with the perceived deference to the Catholic Church of the People's Party and the fairly left wing socialism of the Social Democrats (then still called "Socialist Party") at that time. During the following decades, its adherents included anti-clerical liberals, business representatives striving for more economic liberalism and German nationalists, some of whom were sympathetic to some Nazi policies. Even today, the lower ranks of the party organisation are largely made up of members of German-nationalist Studentenverbindungen. However, this has rarely stopped other parties from cooperating with it, e.g. Bruno Kreisky's minority government (1970–1971) could only survive because the FPÖ agreed to tolerate it.

In 1980, the FPÖ's liberal wing gained control under the leadership of Norbert Steger, who entered into a coalition government with the Social Democrats in 1983. Since results of local elections and polls showed that this threatened the party's existence, discontent with the party leadership grew, which enabled Jörg Haider to take over the party leadership at the Innsbruck convention of 1986 with the help of the party's German-nationalist wing. Social Democratic Chancellor Franz Vranitzky subsequently announced new elections and then entered into a coalition with the People's Party.

Jörg Haider

Jörg Haider was the leading figure of the FPÖ between 1986 and 2001 and soon became one of the most controversial European politicians - mostly because of his dubious dealing with Austria's Nazi history.

In 1970 Haider became the leader of the FPÖ youth movement, where he was perceived to be a liberal. As a federal deputy in Carinthia he gained some notoriety, and popularity, in attacking linguistic privileges of the Slovenian minority. Haider rose rapidly through the party ranks, becoming party leader in 1986.

The Freedom Party attracted protest votes and those who desired no association with the other major parties. The party's mixture of populism and anti-establishment themes propagated by its aggressive leader steadily gained support over the years. It attracted about 27% of the vote in the 1999 elections.

Jörg Haider became governor of Carinthia in 1989 for the first time, but had to resign in 1991 following a remark that the Third Reich had been more effective in developing an employment policy than the current coalition government in Vienna. He regained the post in 1999 and has held it since then.

In 1993, the remaining liberals within the FPÖ, including four members of the National Council (lower house of the parliament), seceded from the party to found the Liberal Forum. This party managed to remain in parliament until 1999. Following the split with the liberal wing, the FPÖ left the Liberal International in 1993. The Liberal Forum party took over that membership in its place.

As a matter of fact, most Austrian observers do not consider Jörg Haider as the die-hard nationalist as which he is sometimes presented outside the country, but rather as a populist who sometimes plays with chauvinist and anti-immigrant sentiments in order to attract votes. However, beside the populist group around Haider, the party still has a large nationalist wing with a problematic relationship to Austria's Nazi past.

The coalition government

In the 1999 parliamentary election, the FPÖ received 27% of the votes, more than in any election before; by a small margin (about 400 votes, with 4.6 million Austrians voting) they even beat the ÖVP (the conservative "People's Party"), which had until then always taken first or second place in national elections.

In early 2000, the FPÖ joined a coalition government with Wolfgang Schüssel's ÖVP. The Freedom Party had to take a junior part in the coalition, as otherwise the ÖVP would have continued their coalition with the SPÖ. There was a great degree of outrage both within the country and internationally. The heads of government of the other 14 EU members decided to cease cooperation with the Austrian government, as it was felt in many countries that the cordon sanitaire against coalitions with parties considered as right-wing extremists, which had mostly held in Western Europe since 1945, had been breached. For example, for several months, other national leaders refused to shake hands and socialize with members of the Schüssel government. This was described as "sanctions" by representatives of the ÖVP and FPÖ, and supporters of the government often blamed social democrats and President Thomas Klestil for them, and questioned their loyalty to the country. The EU leaders soon saw that their measures were counterproductive, and returned to normality during the summer of 2000, even though the coalition remained unchanged.

In February 2000, Haider stepped down from the leadership of the Freedom Party. This was widely seen as a cynical move to appease foreign criticism, as he was alleged to control the party from behind the scenes. He retained the governorship of Carinthia.

Even though the FPÖ members of the government and the party leadership at that time consisted largely of politicians such as Susanne Riess-Passer and Karl-Heinz Grasser, whose career had so far depended entirely on Haider's populism, Haider himself appeared to be increasingly discontent with the situation, as his party began to lose in regional and local elections, since it was no longer in the position to gain votes by criticizing the government. This caused a dispute within the party, which escalated at a special party convention at Knittelfeld that caused three leading members of the government to resign (so-called Knittelfeld Putsch).

In the November 2002, general elections in Austria resulted in a landslide victory (42.27% of the vote) for the People's Party. The Freedom Party, which had been stronger than the People's Party in 1999 , was reduced to 10.16% of the vote, less than half its previous share. Nevertheless, the coalition government of the People's Party and Freedom Party (now with 79+18=97 seats in Austria's 183-seat parliament, down from 52+52=104 in 1999) was renewed in February 2003.

In September 2003, regional elections, notably in Upper Austria, also brought heavy losses, with the Austrian Green Party for the first time receiving more votes than the Freedom Party. The elections to the European Parliament in June 2004 reduced the Freedom Party's share of the vote to a mere 6%. Similar results were achieved at several state and local elections.

The FPÖ seemed to have largely lost its appeal to voters, except in Carinthia, where it gained 42.5% in the state elections of March 7, 2004. However, that success, most likely resting entirely on Haider's personal charisma, appeared to be rapidly losing its effectiveness in the rest of the country.

Secession of Jörg Haider and the BZÖ

In early 2005, the FPÖ was increasingly ridden by internal strife between populist and nationalist factions. Its bargaining position within the coalition government has already been considered to be low by many political observers for some time, which has allowed chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel to pursue largely policies favored by his own party.

On April 4, 2005, several prominent party members (among them former chairman Jörg Haider, his sister and current chairwoman Ursula Haubner, vice chancellor Hubert Gorbach, as well as most of the 18 representatives in parliament) left the party and founded a new party called "Alliance for the future of Austria" (Bündnis Zukunft Österreich" — BZÖ). Regional party organizations seem to be split between the two factions. In Haider's stronghold Carinthia the old FPÖ completely became a organization of the BZÖ. Austria's chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel immediately changed his coalition with the FPÖ into a cooperation with the BZÖ.

On April 23, 2005, Heinz-Christian Strache was elected as new chairman of the party, following Hilmar Kabas, who had taken this position temporarily after Ursula Haubner's resignation.

In the first election where FPÖ and BZÖ competed against each other (state of Styria, October 2, 2005), the FPÖ lost all its seats in the regional parliament (Landtag), but still obtained a far larger number of votes (4.6%) than Haider's BZÖ (1.7%). It was reduced to a share of 5.7% in the Burgenland elections one week later, where the BZÖ did not run.

However, the FPÖ did reasonably well in the Vienna elections on October 23, where Heinz-Christian Strache was the leading candidate and ran a campaign directed strongly against immigration. It took a share of 14.9% (down from more than 20%), while the BZÖ only gained 1.2%. As a result, the BZÖ has been all but eliminated in all states except for Carinthia and the federal level, where it continues to be part of the coalition government. With the exception of Carinthia, Strache now seems poised to reunite the right-wing forces in Austrian politics behind himself.

Timeline

The bar on the left shows the FPÖ's party chairman, while the bar on the right side shows the Chancellor of Austria at that time, with the color of his party affiliation.

External links

• FPÖ Homepage (German)
• Freedom Party of Austria Country Studies - Austria