Austria's far-right strongman Joerg Haider was re-elected Wednesday as the head of Austria's southern Carinthia region following his Freedom Party's surprise victory in provincial elections.
Haider, a charismatic and outspoken politician whose party's role in the former Austrian government in 2000 led to EU sanctions, was elected as governor by the local parliament in the Carinthian capital Klagenfurt.
The Freedom Party and the Social Democrats, in opposition at the national level, agreed after the provincial election on March 7 to jointly govern Carinthia, a decision that has split the Social Democrats.
Haider, 54, has come under fire at home and abroad for favouring Nazi unemployment policies and attracted controversy over his relationships with toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.
He led the Freedom Party from the political wilderness to take nearly a third of votes in national elections late in 1999 and a few months later into a governing coalition with the conservative People's Party.
At the time the Social Democrats condemned Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's decision to form a coalition with the Freedom Party as "a deal with the devil."
The coalition between the conservatives and the far-right is a stormy one, and Haider's deal with the Socialists in Carinthia has sparked speculation that he might try to form a pact with them at national level.
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