Austrians get down to talks

AUSTRIA: The Austrian chancellor, Mr Wolfgang Schüssel, began preliminary talks yesterday to form a new coalition government after the landslide victory of his conservative People's Party (ÖVP) in Sunday's general election, writes Derek Scally, in Berlin

Meanwhile the far-right politician Mr Jörg Haider offered to step down as a state governor after his Freedom Party lost two-thirds of its support in the poll. Hours later, however, he appeared to have withdrawn his offer.

"I am deeply hurt by the result and see it as an expression of distrust toward me," said Mr Haider on a radio station in the state of Carinthia, where he is governor. He said he would offer to resign at a party meeting yesterday evening. But as he left the meeting it appeared that he had changed his mind again.

That decision caused little surprise in Austria. It's the eleventh time that he has threatened to leave Austrian politics for good and already the fifth resignation threat this year.

"I have had my fill of politics; if you work so hard for such a long time, and then you get this result, you should know which decision to make," he said.

Mr Haider resigned as FPÖ leader after the party entered government in 1999 but he continued to act as de facto leader until last September when he clashed with his successor, Ms Susanne Riess-Passer. She resigned along with her other FPÖ cabinet colleagues after Mr Haider organised a rank-and-file revolt, forcing early elections.

Yesterday Ms Riess-Passer blamed her former mentor, Mr Haider, for the party's poor showing.

"That's how Haider wanted it. It took 13 years to build it all up, and probably 13 weeks to destroy it all," she told the Vienna newspaper Die Presse.