Right-wing populist Joerg Haider, staging a national comeback, aims to boost his party's fortunes in Austria's September 28 snap election but without the firebrand politics that once made waves across Europe. Gone are the xenophobic outbursts and the apologist rhetoric about Hitler's Third Reich that helped provoke brief European Union sanctions on Austria when his party was part of the federal ruling coalition from 2000 to 2006.
Haider, whose penchant for controversy once extended to cultivating ties with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, has cut a notably calmer and conciliatory profile since re-emerging from a three-year retreat as governor of Carinthia province.
He says his small party can be part of a "responsible alternative" to dysfunctional coalitions of Austria's two big parties, arguing his views - still anti-immigration and anti-EU integration - have become mainstream. Polls show a quarter of Austrians will back the hard right, almost twice the number at the 2006 election, in a backlash against the centre-left and centre-right parties whose feuding killed off a so-called "grand coalition" in July.
Most rightist voters won't flock to Haider but the rival, virulently anti-foreigner Freedom Party that he led until 2005, when a power struggle drove him to form another party that has gained only fringe status outside his home province.
Still, he said his Alliance for the Future of Austria Party would take 6 to 8 percent, roughly double its showing in 2006. Analysts see that as feasible given Haider's national stature, heavy media exposure and disaffection for establishment parties. "(Our goal) is the biggest possible piece of the 25 percent pie," he told Reuters in an interview.
Once a maverick more comfortable in opposition, Haider has played up a statesman's image, saying an anti-inflation subsidy plan he applied in Carinthia could work on the national level and that he was open to a Vienna coalition with anyone. Smaller parties may be post-election kingmakers since each of the big two has shrivelled to 26 to 28 percent in the polls.
Haider said Austria's biggest priority was action to buffer people against resurgent inflation - the pre-eminent theme in the campaigns of almost all parties. He also called for steps enabling faster deportation of asylum seekers who commit crimes.
But he has not dwelled on immigration unlike Freedom Party rivals, saying it had already been reduced by tougher rules, and he has avoided Freedom's radical anti-foreigner campaigning. "In the situation now it is not enough to display opposition reflexes or cling to ideological principles. We must offer a responsible alternative to the outgoing coalition," said Haider, accused by Freedom of "selling out" to regain national office.
He said the European Union should forge "a privileged partnership or special treaties" with Turkey to obtain a natural gas pipeline not dependent on Russia, he said. EU-Russian relations have worsened over Russia's invasion of Georgia.
But Haider said Turkey was culturally too different from the EU to qualify for membership - a mainstream view in Austria. He said asylum seekers convicted of crimes should be fitted with electronic tags to ensure they cannot vanish while awaiting deportation. But Haider said tougher rules for which he took credit had "drastically reduced" arrivals of economic migrants.
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