Austrian far-right politician Joerg Haider was drunk at the time of his fatal car crash last Saturday, an official from his party has said. Stefan Petzner, the new head of Mr Haider's Alliance for Austria's Future (BZO), said the blood alcohol level was well above the legal limit.
Mr Haider, 58, was driving alone after leaving a nightclub early on Saturday when his car crashed and overturned. Police have said he was travelling at 142km/h (88mph) in a 70km/h zone. The accident occurred south of Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia, where he was the provincial governor.
"It is correct that... Joerg Haider was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. I can and must confirm that," said Mr Petzner.
He said he had made the announcement because of widespread rumours that Mr Haider had been driving drunk.
Mr Haider's car overturned a number of times, causing him serious head, chest and spinal injuries. He died on the way to hospital. Mr Haider had reportedly been due to attend his mother's 90th birthday celebrations later in the day. Mr Haider was known for his anti-immigration and anti-EU policies.
The BZO was one of two right-wing parties that did better than expected in general elections last month, fuelling speculation of a possible role in a ruling coalition. His deputy, Mr Petzner, took over as head of the BZO after Mr Haider's death.
Mr Haider was first elected as governor of Carinthia in 1989. He was forced to resign in 1991 after he made comments praising the employment policies of Nazi Germany. He was re-elected governor in 1999 and 2003.
BBC
Showing posts with label Alliance for the Future of Austria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alliance for the Future of Austria. Show all posts
October 16, 2008
October 13, 2008
Haider was driving at twice speed limit
- Far-right politician died after crash at 142km/h
- National surge of grief for xenophobic party founder
"The speedometer in the wreck had stopped at 142 kilometres (88 mph) - he was clearly speeding at the time of the accident," the prosecutor, Gottfried Kranz, told the Guardian yesterday, adding that the stretch of road in southern Austria had a limit of 70 km per hour.
Flowers piled up and flags flew at half-mast in Austria amid a public surge of grief for the man who created and led the rightist Alliance for the Future of Austria (AFA), a politician who used his smooth-talking charm to propound a set of aggressively xenophobic and anti-EU ideals.
"Jörg Haider died as he lived," wrote Wolfgang Fellner, the editor of Österreich newspaper. "Always full gas, always over the limit."
Haider's legacy included a string of inflammatory remarks, including praise for the notorious Waffen-SS and Nazi employment policies - remarks which even prompted the EU to slap diplomatic sanctions on his country.
His sudden death struck as he was at a political peak: two weeks ago rightist parties clocked up a historical gain in Austria's national elections - together collecting more than a quarter of the vote.
Police ruled out foul play or technical glitches a day after the crash which killed the governor of Austria's southernmost state, Carinthia. Haider was reportedly travelling to a family party when the car veered off the road after he overtook another vehicle. It then smashed into a concrete pillar and rolled over a number of times. Alone in the car, Haider died on the way to the hospital.
After the news broke, political friends and foes spoke of his contribution to the Austrian political landscape. President Heinz Fischer, a social democrat, called it a "human tragedy" and praised him as "a politician of great talent". Some commentators even drew parallels between the public reaction in Austria and the outpouring of grief in Britain after Princess Diana's death.
It has left a big gap in Haider's party, which last month cornered about 11% of the national vote. It remains to be seen what impact the death will have on talks to form a new coalition government, but observers predict new bonds could be forged between the AFA and the Freedom party, a rightist grouping formerly led by Haider. Heinz-Christian Strache, its current leader, and Haider had been rivals; now it could be possible for the two groupings to team up to try to enter government.
Hajo Funke, a specialist in Austrian politics at the Otto-Suhr-Institut in Berlin, said Austria would long bear the hallmarks of the zealous populist."He has successfully created an aggressive temperature towards all kinds of minorities - without reason - and that atmosphere will remain the rightists' support base," he said. "Right now he will be honoured by masses, so he will emerge a kind of hero."
In his own words
- "In the Third Reich they had an orderly employment policy."
- "The Waffen-SS was a part of the Wehrmacht [German military] and hence it deserves all the honour and respect of the army in public life."
- On meeting Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the Iraq war, Haider expressed the "best wishes of the Austrian people and the Freedom party as well as their solidarity with the people of Iraq and their wise leadership."
October 11, 2008
Austrian far right leader dies in car accident
Former leader of Austria's Freedom Party, the late Jörg HaiderHaider, who led the far-right into a coalition government from 2000-2006, made headlines across the world and drew international condemnation with his blunt anti-immigrant statements and for seeming to flirt with Nazi sympathies.
The 58-year-old governor of Austria's Carinthia province died after suffering major head and chest injuries when the government car he was driving went out of control and rolled down an embankment, police said. He was alone in the car. Police said they were investigating the cause of the crash.
"This is for us like the end of the world," said Haider's spokesman Stefan Petzner. He said Haider had been heading to a town near Klagenfurt in the mountainous southern province for a gathering of his family to mark his mother's 90th birthday.
Haider, a folksy character who struck a popular chord among many Austrians, headed one of two far-right parties that surged to a combined 30 percent of the vote in a parliamentary election last month, potentially redrawing Austria's political landscape. Active in politics since his teenage years in the affluent Alpine country, he became a full-time politician in 1977 for the far-right Freedom Party.
Haider caused an international backlash when he led the Freedom Party into a coalition government with the conservative People's Party in 2000, triggering widespread condemnation and temporary European Union sanctions against Austria. The deal fell apart, leading to an early election in 2002 in which the Freedom Party lost heavily, followed by a remake of the coalition.
After internecine struggles within the Freedom Party, Haider formed the breakaway Alliance for the Future of Austria in 2005. His new party became junior partner in the coalition government, while the Freedom Party left and went into opposition. But in a national election in 2006, the Alliance for the Future of Austria only just scraped past the 4 percent threshold to enter parliament.
Haider also made headlines with several verbal gaffes and by making foreign trips to see leaders such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. He once reproached Austria's government by citing the "proper labour policies" of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. On another occasion he referred to Nazi concentration camps in a parliamentary debate as "penal camps".
Born in Upper Austria, his father was a former member of Hitler's brown-shirted storm troopers. His mother was a teacher who had been a Hitler Youth leader.
Haider is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Independent
September 26, 2008
Haider is back. Just don't mention the war
Last time he was in power, his nation became a pariah state. These days, Jörg Haider is more likely to praise the EU than the Nazis, although he and his party still hold controversial views about immigrants.
Jörg Haider believes he will hold the balance of
power after parliamentary elections this weekend
Jörg Haider, the far-right politician who turned Austria into an international pariah less than a decade ago because of his sympathetic views about Nazi Germany, is aiming for a surprise comeback in elections this weekend.
When he was part of the Austrian government in 1999 the rabble-rousing populist described Nazi SS veterans as "men of honour" and praised Hitler's employment policies, triggering European Union sanctions against Austria as a result.
Mr Haider, 58, has been mostly out of national politics ever since, but in Sunday's parliamentary elections he is hoping to return with a result that will leave him holding the balance of power, and maybe even offer him the chance of becoming head of state.
In an interview at the headquarters of his Alliance for the Future of Austria party in Vienna, Mr Haider told The Independent: "I want to run for the post of Chancellor of Austria – I am convinced that I can offer an alternative to those voters who have had enough of the failures of the outgoing grand coalition government."
Austria's grand coalition, comprising the conservative People's Party and the centre-left Social Democrats, collapsed in July after months of infighting. Neither of the two parties wants to form another alliance. Opinion polls published this week suggest that each will secure only around 25 per cent of the vote. The forecasts suggest that a further 25 per cent of votes will go to Austria's populist far-right bloc comprising the Freedom Party and Mr Haider's Alliance.
Mr Haider is banking on such a constellation leaving the far-right bloc as potential kingmakers. He says he is open to the idea of forming a coalition with either of the two main parties. And as a well-known figure in Austrian politics and a seasoned governor of the state of Carinthia, he sees himself as the ideal candidate for chancellor.
The veteran right-winger's praise for Hitler's employment policies and his attendance at a rally of SS veterans provoked widespread international criticism and charges that Austria had failed to learn the lessons of its Nazi past. Mr Haider says those days are now over but he added: "We are not going to let the outside world dictate to Austria how it should deal with the past."
Vienna is plastered with election billboards displaying colour photographs of a permanently tanned Mr Haider. He is shown wearing checked shirts and peasant costumes in an apparent appeal to Austrian country folk. "Let's roll up our sleeves and get on with the job – vote Jörg Haider – the original," proclaim the slogans. For his interview in the top-floor office of his Vienna HQ however, Mr Haider showed up in a figure-hugging white leather jacket and skin-tight trousers. He insisted that during his absence from Austria's national political scene he had become more reasonable and responsible. "Austria had reached a dead end with the grand coalition. We have lost out against chief industrial competitors in Germany and missed a chance," he explained. "I want to put Austria back in front," he added, listing a series of proposals for government funding for ailing medium-sized businesses. Mr Haider's confrontation with the EU also seemed to be over. Unlike his right-wing Freedom Party competitors who are advocating that Austria leave the EU, he wants his country to remain, although as a critical member.
His new-found enthusiasm may have something to do with the fact that Austria has benefited hugely from EU membership. In recent years the country has managed to expand its trade with eastern Europe. Unemployment is around 3 per cent and Austria now imports thousands of young German "guest workers" each year.
However despite the "responsible" rhetoric, it was clear that the governor of Carinthia continues to hold extreme views about immigrants. In the run-up to the election Mr Haider's Alliance had been conducting a controversial campaign in the southern city of Graz. It featured a large poster of an immigrant beggar woman clad in what appeared to be filthy clothes, sitting on a step in the centre of Graz. The slogan reminded voters that Mr Haider's party would "Clean up Graz". And alongside were posters, displaying the party's leading politicians sweeping the streets with brooms.
Mr Haider exploded at the suggestion that his poster was reminiscent of the anti-immigrant campaigning of the right-wing populist in next-door Switzerland, Christoph Blocher. "I know the British press, it is always on the look out for such negative extremism," he said. "Sarkozy, the President of France, used similar language after the riots in Paris. You cannot criticise us for using the same methods as the current president of the EU," he insisted, claiming that his campaign was designed at rooting out a "beggars' mafia" that had invaded part of Austria. Indeed, Mr Haider and his party see Austria threatened by a massive influx of criminals from eastern Europe.
Ironically, the biggest threat to his political re-emergence after this weekend is the leader of Austria's other right-wing organisation – the Freedom Party which Mr Haider left in 2005 following a split in the organisation, taking all of the Freedom Party's MPs with him.
Mr Haider's Alliance for the Future of Austria is the junior partner in the bloc. Polls suggest that most far-right votes, amounting to around 17 per cent, will go to the Freedom Party headed by Mr Haider's old protégé turned enemy, Heinz-Christian Strache. A 39-year-old former dental technician, Mr Strache has been running a virulently anti-foreigner campaign with slogans such as "Flights home for asylum cheats". He recently failed to win a court action against a magazine which accused him of having neo-Nazi contacts.
Mr Haider and Mr Strache have made it plain in the past that they consider themselves arch rivals and are said to dislike each other intensely. But Mr Haider has since indicated that he may have to work together with his enemy if he wants a taste of political power. "I will have to co-operate. He may not be my ideal candidate, but we will have to make compromises," he said.
Rise of the right The power of xenophobia
Galvanised by the issues of Third World immigration and Islam, right-wing parties are a force to be reckoned with across much of Europe today. Several of them have succeeded in rebranding themselves as traditional conservatives rather than quasi-Fascist.
In Norway the anti-immigrant Progress Party is now the largest in the land. Like other right-wing parties in Scandinavia, it has enjoyed surging support since the Islamic cartoon affair two years ago. In Switzerland, Christoph Blocher's Swiss People's Party won the general election last year after a campaign condemned as racist by UN monitors. In Poland the League of Polish Families, a member of the coalition government until a year ago, campaigns for the elimination of Jewish influence in business and the professions. The Vlaams Belang in Belgium is strongly anti-immigrant. Even in ultra-liberal Denmark, the nationalist and anti-immigrant Danish People's Party is now the third largest party. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi's Party of Freedom is sandwiched in the ruling coalition by the anti-immigrant Northern League and the post-Fascist National Alliance.
Independent
Jörg Haider believes he will hold the balance ofpower after parliamentary elections this weekend
When he was part of the Austrian government in 1999 the rabble-rousing populist described Nazi SS veterans as "men of honour" and praised Hitler's employment policies, triggering European Union sanctions against Austria as a result.
Mr Haider, 58, has been mostly out of national politics ever since, but in Sunday's parliamentary elections he is hoping to return with a result that will leave him holding the balance of power, and maybe even offer him the chance of becoming head of state.
In an interview at the headquarters of his Alliance for the Future of Austria party in Vienna, Mr Haider told The Independent: "I want to run for the post of Chancellor of Austria – I am convinced that I can offer an alternative to those voters who have had enough of the failures of the outgoing grand coalition government."
Austria's grand coalition, comprising the conservative People's Party and the centre-left Social Democrats, collapsed in July after months of infighting. Neither of the two parties wants to form another alliance. Opinion polls published this week suggest that each will secure only around 25 per cent of the vote. The forecasts suggest that a further 25 per cent of votes will go to Austria's populist far-right bloc comprising the Freedom Party and Mr Haider's Alliance.
Mr Haider is banking on such a constellation leaving the far-right bloc as potential kingmakers. He says he is open to the idea of forming a coalition with either of the two main parties. And as a well-known figure in Austrian politics and a seasoned governor of the state of Carinthia, he sees himself as the ideal candidate for chancellor.
The veteran right-winger's praise for Hitler's employment policies and his attendance at a rally of SS veterans provoked widespread international criticism and charges that Austria had failed to learn the lessons of its Nazi past. Mr Haider says those days are now over but he added: "We are not going to let the outside world dictate to Austria how it should deal with the past."
Vienna is plastered with election billboards displaying colour photographs of a permanently tanned Mr Haider. He is shown wearing checked shirts and peasant costumes in an apparent appeal to Austrian country folk. "Let's roll up our sleeves and get on with the job – vote Jörg Haider – the original," proclaim the slogans. For his interview in the top-floor office of his Vienna HQ however, Mr Haider showed up in a figure-hugging white leather jacket and skin-tight trousers. He insisted that during his absence from Austria's national political scene he had become more reasonable and responsible. "Austria had reached a dead end with the grand coalition. We have lost out against chief industrial competitors in Germany and missed a chance," he explained. "I want to put Austria back in front," he added, listing a series of proposals for government funding for ailing medium-sized businesses. Mr Haider's confrontation with the EU also seemed to be over. Unlike his right-wing Freedom Party competitors who are advocating that Austria leave the EU, he wants his country to remain, although as a critical member.
His new-found enthusiasm may have something to do with the fact that Austria has benefited hugely from EU membership. In recent years the country has managed to expand its trade with eastern Europe. Unemployment is around 3 per cent and Austria now imports thousands of young German "guest workers" each year.
However despite the "responsible" rhetoric, it was clear that the governor of Carinthia continues to hold extreme views about immigrants. In the run-up to the election Mr Haider's Alliance had been conducting a controversial campaign in the southern city of Graz. It featured a large poster of an immigrant beggar woman clad in what appeared to be filthy clothes, sitting on a step in the centre of Graz. The slogan reminded voters that Mr Haider's party would "Clean up Graz". And alongside were posters, displaying the party's leading politicians sweeping the streets with brooms.
Mr Haider exploded at the suggestion that his poster was reminiscent of the anti-immigrant campaigning of the right-wing populist in next-door Switzerland, Christoph Blocher. "I know the British press, it is always on the look out for such negative extremism," he said. "Sarkozy, the President of France, used similar language after the riots in Paris. You cannot criticise us for using the same methods as the current president of the EU," he insisted, claiming that his campaign was designed at rooting out a "beggars' mafia" that had invaded part of Austria. Indeed, Mr Haider and his party see Austria threatened by a massive influx of criminals from eastern Europe.
Ironically, the biggest threat to his political re-emergence after this weekend is the leader of Austria's other right-wing organisation – the Freedom Party which Mr Haider left in 2005 following a split in the organisation, taking all of the Freedom Party's MPs with him.
Mr Haider's Alliance for the Future of Austria is the junior partner in the bloc. Polls suggest that most far-right votes, amounting to around 17 per cent, will go to the Freedom Party headed by Mr Haider's old protégé turned enemy, Heinz-Christian Strache. A 39-year-old former dental technician, Mr Strache has been running a virulently anti-foreigner campaign with slogans such as "Flights home for asylum cheats". He recently failed to win a court action against a magazine which accused him of having neo-Nazi contacts.
Mr Haider and Mr Strache have made it plain in the past that they consider themselves arch rivals and are said to dislike each other intensely. But Mr Haider has since indicated that he may have to work together with his enemy if he wants a taste of political power. "I will have to co-operate. He may not be my ideal candidate, but we will have to make compromises," he said.
Rise of the right The power of xenophobia
Galvanised by the issues of Third World immigration and Islam, right-wing parties are a force to be reckoned with across much of Europe today. Several of them have succeeded in rebranding themselves as traditional conservatives rather than quasi-Fascist.
In Norway the anti-immigrant Progress Party is now the largest in the land. Like other right-wing parties in Scandinavia, it has enjoyed surging support since the Islamic cartoon affair two years ago. In Switzerland, Christoph Blocher's Swiss People's Party won the general election last year after a campaign condemned as racist by UN monitors. In Poland the League of Polish Families, a member of the coalition government until a year ago, campaigns for the elimination of Jewish influence in business and the professions. The Vlaams Belang in Belgium is strongly anti-immigrant. Even in ultra-liberal Denmark, the nationalist and anti-immigrant Danish People's Party is now the third largest party. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi's Party of Freedom is sandwiched in the ruling coalition by the anti-immigrant Northern League and the post-Fascist National Alliance.
Independent
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
