Joerg Haider's far-right Freedom Party elected their low-profile transport minister as leader today to try to unify the fractious party after a power struggle that toppled the Austrian government.
Mathias Reichhold's election by an emergency party convention two months ahead of elections appears to seal Haider's departure from the national political stage, for the time being at least.
"We may be in the basement but we can see the light again," Reichhold told the convention in the southern province of Burgenland, referring to a disastrous drop in polls as voters blame the Freedom party for the government's demise.
Reichhold, who ran unopposed and took 93 percent of the convention vote, said his goal would be to unify the party. It was torn by a battle between hardliners loyal to Haider and moderates among the Freedom cabinet ministers over delayed tax cuts and the speed of European Union expansion.
On September 9, Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel of the conservative People's Party broke up the two-party coalition and called for early elections after Haider led a rank-and-file revolt that ousted the Freedom chairwoman and vice-chancellor, Susanne Riess-Passer.
Haider was then nominated to take back control of the party but unexpectedly bowed out last Saturday. Reichhold was nominated as a last-minute replacement.
Haider cited threats against his family for bowing out. But analysts said it was a tactical move to avoid blame for the party's expected drubbing at the November 24 polls by voters who blamed him for the premature end of the two-party coalition.
The Freedom Party's rating has plunged as low as 13 percent from the 27 percent it won in the 1999 election. That result catapulted the anti-immigration party from the fringes into a coalition with Schuessel's conservatives in 2000.
The opposition Social Democrats, who have dominated most coalitions since World War Two, are the clear leaders in opinion polls, with 39 percent versus 35 percent for the People's Party.
The opposition Green Party is polling around 12 percent.
Analysts say that a "red-green" German-style coalition of the Social Democrats and Green Party is a likely outcome of the next elections. A recent poll showed 80 percent of Austrians were opposed to another Freedom Party-People's Party coalition.