Austria's far-right Freedom Party are meeting today to select a new leader campaigning starts for a snap election called after Haider's revolt toppled the coalition government.
Haider has been tipped to regain leadership of the party which collapsed the ruling coalition government. Haider has dominated the Freedom Party from the wings since giving up the chairmanship in May 2000 and leaders were expected to ask him to unify the party and lead its campaign for the November elections.
"There is no realistic alternative to Haider," party General Secretary Karl Schweitzer said.
Haider says he is not the right man after leading the rank and file to oust Freedom Party ministers over delayed tax cuts, prompting Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel of the conservative People's Party to break up the coalition on Monday.
But Haider has often played hard-to-get with his own party.
Analysts said he appeared to be trying to manoeuvre the party into allowing him to run the kind of aggressive campaign that won the party second place in the 1999 elections.
"The Freedom Party under Haider will once again be what it was in 1999 and earlier elections, a platform for protest voters," said Fritz Plasser of Austria's Centre for Political Research.
"It will be an all-around attack against everything, especially the polarising issue of the effects of EU expansion on Austria," he said.
Haider will likely play up Austrian fears of immigration and job losses to Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians if those neighbours join Austria in the European Union.
He has repeatedly threatened to block Austrian approval of EU expansion into central and eastern Europe because of disputes with the Czech Republic over a Czech nuclear plant and Czech treatment of ethnic Germans after World War Two.
Elections are likely to be scheduled for November 24 when parliament meets next Thursday. Polls had not been due until October 2003.