Alfred Gusenbauer Social Democrats winThis report on the Austrian election was compiled by EU-Digest from various reports in the press
Social Democrats win in the Austrian elections
Vienna- The first results of the Austrian general elections showed the opposition Social Democrats of Alfred Gusenbauer leading the ruling conservatives. The Social Democrats won 35.7 pct of the vote to 34.2 pct for Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's conservative People's Party. The far-right Freedom Party and nationalist Joerg Haider's Alliance for Austria's Future respectively pulled 11.2 and 4.2 pct of the vote, while the environmental Greens grabbed 10.5 pct. About 400,000 ballots from abroad and people who voted in a polling stations other than their own, still have to be counted. The final results are not expected to change the outcome of the elections.While the extreme right did not come close to its highest-ever election result - 27 percent in 1999 - it still remains a potent force in Austria. For Jorg Haider, the flamboyant far- right leader who has lingered on the sidelines of Austrian politics for the last few years, the election was a close call with political extinction. His party, the Alliance for Austria's Future, appeared to have held on to seats in Parliament, winning 4.2 percent of the vote, just above the required 4 percent threshold.
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