Austria’s Far-Right Leader Killed in Car Crash

By Peter Popham

Jorg Haider, controversial populist who tried to rehabilitate the SS, dies two weeks after making dramatic electoral comeback

The far-right Austrian leader Jrg Haider, one of Europes most controversial politicians, was killed yesterday in a traffic accident, less than two weeks after making a triumphant comeback at the polls.

Mr Haider, 58, whose Alliance for the Future of Austria gained just over 10 per cent of the vote in a general election on 28 September, provoked the EU to impose sanctions on Austria in 2000 when he entered national government as part of a coalition. He stepped down as party chairman as a result, and the partys support slumped, although it remained in the government.

A folksy and charismatic populist, Mr Haider appalled the liberal political establishment across Europe with his attacks on immigration, his attempted rehabilitation of the Nazis he called the SS a part of the German army of which we should be proud his anti-Semitism, and his description of Nazi death camps as penal camps. In 2001 he told voters in Vienna: We dont want more foreigners here, we dont want them in our apartments and we dont want their children in our schools.

Mr Haider was on his way to his mothers home to celebrate her 90th birthday when he died. He was driving alone at 2.30am near his home town of Klagenfurt when he lost control of the government- owned limousine after overtaking and plunged down an embankment. He suffered fatal chest and head injuries. A spokesman for his party, Stefan Petzner, said: For us, its like the end of the world.

With his death, Austrias resurgent far right was robbed of the man who a decade ago succeeded in tapping into Austrian xenophobia and nostalgia for the Nazi past and converting them into political gold. When he took over as leader of the Freedom Party in 1986, aged 36, its support stood at 5 per cent. His election prompted the Social Democrats to end their alliance with the party, which remained in opposition for the following 13 years. But in elections in 1999 it gained 27 per cent of the vote. The following year the party joined the centrist government led by the Peoples Party, bringing short-lived EU sanctions.

With support for his party dwindling, Mr Haider appeared to be heading into the sunset of his career. In 2005 he split acrimoniously from the Freedom Party and formed the Alliance for the Future of Austria. He toned down his right-wing rhetoric, even claiming that he believed Turkey should be admitted to the European Union. In 2006 the party squeaked into parliament with 4 per cent of the vote, just over the threshhold.

Two weeks ago, however, he came storming back. Mr Haiders Alliance obtained 10.7 per cent of the vote, and total support for the far-right parties, including for the Freedom Party under the leadership of his rival, Heinz-Christian Strache, came to 28.2 per cent of the vote, only a whisker behind the Social Democrats. Even more worrying for mainstream parties was the success enjoyed by the far right among the young, with 43 per cent of 16 to 29-year-olds voting for them, and 47 per cent of first-time voters. Despite Mr Haiders bitter animosity towards the man who replaced him as head of the Freedom Party, their gains at the polls prompted them to hold talks last week to try to put aside their differences.

The day before he died, Mr Haider was once again in the headlines, announcing the creation of an isolation camp for asylum- seekers defined as delinquent, 1,200 metres up a Carinthian mountain. Heinz Patzelt, head of the Austrian branch of Amnesty International, said the idea sounds strongly like banishment. Theres no place for that in a modern system with the rule of law.

Mr Haider was immensely popular in his home province of Carinthia, and was adept at modulating his image to suit the audience he was addressing. On television he presented a mild and reasonable face, but in front of large crowds he could let rip with mob-pleasing rhetoric.

In 1991 he became notorious when he told the provincial parliament in Carinthia that the Third Reich eliminated joblessness through an orderly employment policy which the government in Vienna cannot manage. He subsequently resigned.

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