Vienna: Austria's unpopular and squabbling centrist coalition began the search Tuesday for a new leader and a new start after a surging populist far-right forced Chancellor Werner Faymann to resign.
The choice of a successor to Faymann, 56, who quit on Monday due to "insufficient support" in his Social Democrats (SPOe) party, is fraught with potential risks, however, experts say.
The cabinet, led on an interim basis by Reinhold Mitterlehner, head of the SPOe's coalition partner the People's Party (OeVP), was to meet in Vienna early Tuesday ahead of a gathering of OeVP top brass in Salzburg.
The two centrist parties have dominated Austrian politics since World War II but the writing has long been on the wall, only just managing to scratch together a majority at the last elections in 2013.
Mirroring similar trends across Europe, they have been bleeding support to fringe groups, in particular to the anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe) after almost a million migrants passed through Austria last year.
The FPOe under Heinz-Christian Strache, 46, is leading opinion polls ahead of the next general election due in 2018 and on April 24, its candidate won the first round of elections for the largely ceremonial post of president.
Norbert Hofer, 45, will face Alexander van der Bellen, 72, a professorial former head of the Greens, in a May 22 runoff.
The two ruling parties' candidates were knocked out of the race with just 11 percent of the vote each against 35 percent for Hofer.
This dismal performance, due also to a worsening economic situation and the coalition's inability to agree reforms, means that for the first time since 1945, the president will not be from one of the two centrist parties.
This could result in a situation in which the new president makes use of some of the head of state's considerable but hitherto unused powers, such as firing the government or dissolving parliament.
'Very dangerous'
Possible candidates to succeed Faymann, who was chancellor for almost eight years, include Christian Kern, 50, head of the national railways company, and Gerhard Zeiler, 60, former chief of national broadcaster ORF.
"It would be good to have a new face, someone from outside the party," Karin Cvrtila from the OGM polling institute told AFP.
SPOe bosses are due to decide at a meeting on May 17 ahead of a party congress on June 25. Another congress in November will debate the party's future policy in what could turn out to be a fiery event.
This is because the new SPOe head could decide, in view of its and the OeVP's unpopularity, to take the radical and dangerous gamble of dropping the party's historic opposition to a tie-up with the far-right.
Such a move has been backed by party grandee and former chancellor Franz Vranitzky, among others. The two parties are already in coalition in the eastern state of Burgenland and elsewhere at local level.
Political analyst Anton Pelinka from Innsbruck University said this could be "very dangerous", potentially tearing the party apart and driving voters towards the Greens. The head of the party's youth wing on Tuesday voiced her opposition.
History also serves as a warning. When in 2000, the OeVP formed a government with the FPOe under the late Joerg Haider, the result was massive demonstrations and Austria being ostracised in Europe.
In the meantime, the SPOe must choose a chancellor amenable to the OeVP, which is not a given. It wants a renewed focus on economic reforms and no change to Austria's new hardline migrants policy -- much to the dislike of many in the SPOe.
AFP
