Haider's Last Stand?

Austrians were voting Sunday in general elections expected to be among the closest in the central European state since World War II and which could see the far right leave power after six years as the junior coalition partner.

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, 61, who took office in 2000 in a controversial alliance with the far-right, is hoping to stay in office with a change in coalition partners.

Political science professor Walter Manoschek told reporters that this would mark "the end of the most successful far-right party in Europe," referring to groupings led by nationalist Jörg Haider.

Haider has headed the party functioning as the junior partner in Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel's ruling coalition since 2000.

But Haider's BZOe (Alliance for Austria's Future) party is not expected to win the 4 percent of total votes needed to enter parliament. Haider created the BZOe last year after losing control of the Freedom Party (FPOe) which he had led into national government.

The FPOe, now led by one of his former lieutenants Heinz-Christian Strache, is expected to win 10 percent of the votes Sunday, making it a shoo-in for parliament.

Schüssel's conservative OeVP (People's Party), which looks set to win the election, has however ruled out an alliance with the FPOe, calling it xenophobic, hostile to Islam and anti-European.

'This choice was disasterous'

Ironically, while Haider has moved towards the center during his party's time in government, Strache has risen in his party using the populist and openly xenophobic stance that Haider had used when in the opposition.

"Neither the OeVP nor the FPOe wish to govern together," political scientist Peter Ulram from the University of Vienna said.

Ulram said the FPOe fears that if it entered government, it would alienate its supporters who are not willing to abandon their far-right hardline.

Despite some political victories, including stricter immigration laws, Haider's star has been fading because of a "re-centering inherent to governing," suffering electoral losses everywhere since 2002 except in his southern province of Carinthia, Ulram said.

Overtaken by the 36-year-old Strache, Haider, 56, left the FPOe to found the BZOe, a "modern and responsible" far-right, in the spring of 2005.

In May of this year however, he handed over the party reins to his former personal secretary Peter Westenthaler, 38, who is the BZOe's top candidate in Sunday's elections.

"This choice was disastrous and definitely hurt the BZOe's image, as Westenthaler organised a campaign resembling Strache's," Ulram said.

Wanting a 'direct' mandate

Comments by Westenthaler demanding the expulsion from Austria of 300,000 foreigners led Justice Minister Karin Gastinger, a moderate in the BZOe, to quit the party this week. The FPOe and BZOe now accuse each other of treason and plagiarism.

The FPOe has, however, managed to have itself placed third on voting cards, after Austria's two major parties, Schüssel's People's Party and the Socialists (SPOe).

Haider is desperately fighting in Carinthia, where he is governor, to have his party receive a "direct mandate" to get into parliament.

Haider still needs six points to achieve the 27 percent of votes necessary in his constituency to obtain a direct mandate, according to polls.

In a return to hardline politicking, Haider "is staking everything (in his campaign) on a refusal to give language rights to the Slovenian minority in the name of national-German feelings," Klaus Ottomeyer, a professor at the University of Klagenfurt in Carinthia, said.

In 2000, the FPOe's entry into government had caused the European Union to impose diplomatic sanctions on Austria.