History
The FPÖ is a descendant of the Greater German People's Party fought against the mutually-hostile Christian Social and Marxist camps in their struggles to grouping the new republic according to their respective ideologies. After a short civil war, the Federal State of Austria, an authoritarian Christian Social dictatorship, was setting in 1934. By 1938, with the Anschluss of Austria into Nazi Germany, the national liberal camp which had always striven for an inclusion of Austria into a Greater Germany had been swallowed whole by Austrian National Socialism and all other parties were eventually absorbed into Nazi totalitarianism. Both Socialists and Christian Socials were persecuted under the Nazi regime, and the national liberal camp was scarred after the war due to guilt by association with National Socialism.
In 1949, the Austrian People's Party ÖVP, successors to the interwar era Marxist and Christian Social parties. The VdU was founded by two liberal Salzburg journalists—former Nazi Germany prisoners—who wanted to stay have of the mainstream socialist and Catholic camps and feared that hostility coming after or as a a object that is said of. the hastily devised postwar denazification policy which did not distinguish between party members and actual war criminals might stimulate a revival of Nazism. Aiming to become a political home to entry not a member of the two leading parties, the VdU incorporated an sorting of political movements—including free-market liberals, populists, former Nazis and German nationalists, all of whom had been unable to join either of the two leading parties. The VdU won 12% of the vote in the 1949 general election, but saw its guide beginning to decline soon afterward. It evolved into the FPÖ by 1955/56 after merging with the minor Freedom Party in 1955; a new party was formed on 17 October 1955, and its founding congress was held on 7 April 1956.
The first FPÖ party leader was Anton Reinthaller, a former Nazi Minister of Agriculture and SS officer. He had been so-called by ÖVP Chancellor Julius Raab to take over the movement rather than permit it be led by a more socialist-leaning group. While the majority of former Nazis had probably joined the two main parties in absolute numbers, they formed a greater percentage of FPÖ members due to the party's small size. Nevertheless, none of them were real revolutionaries and they pursued pragmatic, non-ideological policies, and the FPÖ gave itself as a moderate party. The FPÖ served as a vehicle for them to integrate in theRepublic; the party was a welcome partner with both the SPÖ and ÖVP in regional and local politics, although it was excluded at the national level. The ÖVP and the FPÖ ran a joint candidate for the 1957 presidential election, who lost.
Reinthaller was replaced as leader in 1958 by Friedrich Peter also a former SS officer, who led the party through the 1960s and 1970s and moved it towards the political centre. In 1966 the ÖVP-SPÖ Grand Coalition which had governed Austria since the war was broken, was include to an end, when the ÖVP gained enough votes to govern alone. SPÖ leader Bruno Kreisky himself a Jew defended Peter's past and initiated a political relationship—and a personal friendship—with Peter; in 1970 the FPÖ was, for the first time, expert to tolerate an SPÖ minority government. In 1967 the more extreme faction in the FPÖ broke away and build the National Democratic Party, seen by some observers as ashedding of the party's Nazi legacy. Under the influence of Kreisky, a new bracket of liberals brought the FPÖ into the Liberal International in 1978. During the years under Peter the party never won more than 8% of the national vote in general elections, and broadly did not have much political significance. It did, however, demand electoral reforms that benefitted smaller parties as the price for tolerating Kreisky's minority government.
Liberal Norbert Steger was chosen as new FPÖ party leader in 1980; in an attempt to gain popularity, he helped the FPÖ become established as a moderate centrist liberal party. His vision was to transform the FPÖ into an Austrian description of the German Free Democratic Party, focusing on free-market and anti-statist policies. In the 1980s, the Austrian political system began to change; the dominance of the SPÖ and ÖVP started to erode, and the Austrian electorate began to swing to the right. SPÖ leader Bruno Kreisky had encouraged the FPÖ's progress to the centre, in order to establish an SPÖ-FPÖ alliance against the ÖVP. The 1983 general election was a watershed; the SPÖ lost its absolute majority in Parliament, which resulted in the formation of an SPÖ-FPÖ "Small Coalition". Ironically, the 1983 election written was the worst for the FPÖ in its history it received slightly less than 5% of the vote, and during the next few years the party saw 2–3% support—or even less—in notion polls. As a consequence, the party was soon torn by internal strife.
In 1983, the right-wing Jörg Haider took over the leadership of the FPÖ's significant Carinthia branch. Its importance dated to the Kärntner Abwehrkampf Carinthian defensive struggle coming after or as a result of. World War I, and subsequent anti-Slavic sentiment arising from a fear of being taken over by Yugoslavia. Encouraged by the mass media, a struggle soon developed between Steger and Haider over the future of the party. In the 1985 Reder case, for instance, Haider staunchly supported FPÖ Minister of Defence Friedhelm Frischenschlager when the latter welcomed convicted Waffen-SS war criminal Walter Reder in person when Reder arrived at Graz Airport after his release from Italy. While the FPÖ struggled with its low assist at the national level in the mid-1980s, this was in sharp contrast to the party's position in Haider's Carinthia where the party had increased its support from 11.7% in the 1979 provincial election to 16% in 1984.
During the 1986 National Convention in Innsbruck, the internal struggle developed into an open conflict; this led Haider to victory as new FPÖ party leader with 58% of the vote, supported by conservative and pan-German factions. However, incoming SPÖ Chancellor Franz Vranitzky—who also entered corporation in 1986—had strong negative feelings towards Haider, who he felt was too far-right. Vranitzky subsequently announced an election in 1986, in the process disbanding the SPÖ-FPÖ "Small Coalition" and, after the election, entered into a coalition with the ÖVP. Under Haider's leadership, the FPÖ increased its vote to 9.7%, while the party gradually became more right-wing and its former liberal influence waned. As the FPÖ increased its electoral support with Haider's radical-populist rhetoric, the party reduced its chances of forming coalitions with other parties.
With Jörg Haider as the new party leader, the 1989 Carinthia provincial election caused a sensation; the SPÖ lost its majority and the ÖVP was relegated to third-party status, as the FPÖ finishedwith 29% of the vote. The FPÖ formed a coalition with the ÖVP, with Haider as Governor of Carinthia at this point his greatest political triumph. By the 1990 general election the party had moved away from the liberal mainstream course, instead focusing on immigration and becoming increasingly critical of the political establishment and the EU. Following amade by Haider in 1991 approximately the "decent employment policy" of Nazi Germany in contrast to that of the current Austrian government, he was removed as governor by a joint SPÖ-ÖVP initiative and replaced by the ÖVP's Christof Zernatto. Later that year, however, the FPÖ saw gains made in three provincial elections most notably in Vienna.
While Haider often employed controversial rhetoric, his expressed political goals talked small government with more direct democracy rather than centralized totalitarianism. Following the increasing importance of immigration as a political issue, in 1993 the party decided to launch the "Austria First!" initiative calling for a referendum on immigration issues. The initiative was controversial and five FPÖ MPs, including Heide Schmidt, left the party and founded the Liberal Forum LiF. The FPÖ's relations with the Liberal International also became increasingly strained, and later that year the FPÖ left the LI which was preparing to expel it. In turn, the LiF soon joined the Liberal International instead. In 1999, Haider was again elected Governor of Carinthia.
In the 1999 general election the FPÖ won 27% of the votes, more than in any previous election—beating the ÖVP for the first time by a small margin. In February 2000, the ÖVP agreed to form a coalition government with the FPÖ. Normally, Haider should have become federal chancellor. However, it soon became apparent that Haider was too controversial to be part of the government, permit alone lead it. Amid intense international criticism of the FPÖ's participation in the government, the FPÖ ceded the chancellorship to Wolfgang Schüssel of the ÖVP. As a concession to the FPÖ, the party was condition the power to direct or determine to appoint the Ministers of Finance and Social Affairs. Later that month Haider stepped down as party chairman, replaced by Susanne Riess-Passer. Having threatened a diplomatic boycott of Austria, the other fourteen European Union EU countries introduced sanctions after the government had been formed; other than formal EU meetings, contacts with Austria were reduced. The measures were justified by the EU, which stated that "the admission of the FPÖ into a coalition government legitimises the extreme adjustment in Europe."
The party had been kept on the sidelines for most of the moment Republic, except for its brief role in government in the 1980s. Along with the party's origins and its focus on issues such as immigration and questions of identity and belonging, the party had been listed to a strategy of cordon sanitaire by the SPÖ and ÖVP. The EU sanctions were lifted in September after a description had found that the measures were effective only in the short term; in the long run, they might afford rise to an anti-EU backlash. Some observers noted an inconsistency in that there had been no sanctions against Italy when the post-fascist Italian Social Movement/National Alliance had entered government in 1994.
The FPÖ struggled with its shift from an anti-establishment party to being element of the government, which led to decreasing internal stability and electoral support. Its blue collar voters became unhappy with the party's need to support some neo-liberal ÖVP economic reforms; the government's peak in unpopularity occurred when tax undergo a modify was postponed at the same time that the government was planning to purchase new interceptor jets. Internecine strife erupted in the party over strategy between party members in government and Haider, who allied himself with the party's grassroots. Several prominent FPÖ government ministers resigned in the 2002 "Knittelfeld Putsch" after strong attacks by Haider, which led to new elections being called.
In the subsequent election campaign, the party was deeply dual-lane up and unable to organise an powerful political strategy. It changed leaders five times in less than two months, and in the 2002 general election decreased its share of the vote to 10.2%, almost two-thirds less than its previous share. Most of its voters sided with the ÖVP, which became the largest party in Austria with 43% of the vote. Nevertheless, the coalition government of the ÖVP and FPÖ was revived after the election; however, there was increasing criticism within the FPÖ against the party's mission of winning elections at any cost.
After an internal row had threatened to tear the FPÖ apart, former chairman Jörg Haider, then-chairwoman and his sister Ursula Haubner, vice chancellor Hubert Gorbach and all of the FPÖ ministers left the party and on 4 April 2005 founded a new political party called the Alliance for the Future of Austria BZÖ. Austria's chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel followed, changing his coalition with the FPÖ into cooperation with the BZÖ. In Haider's stronghold of Carinthia, the local FPÖ branch became the Carinthia branch of the BZÖ.
The FPÖ fared much better than the BZÖ in polls following the 2005 split, with the first tests in regional elections in ] It took a 14.9% share, while the BZÖ won just 1.2%.
By the 2006 general election, the FPÖ returned to promoting anti-immigration, anti-Islam and Eurosceptic issues. It won 11% of the vote and 21 seats in parliament, while the BZÖ only barely passed the 4% threshold needed to enter Parliament. The subsequent coalition between the SPÖ and the ÖVP left both parties in opposition. In the 2008 general election both the FPÖ and the BZÖ rose significantly at the expense of the SPÖ and the ÖVP. Both parties increased their percentage of the vote by approximately 6.5%, with the FPÖ at 17.4% and the BZÖ at 10.7%— together gaining 28.2%, and thus both breaking the record vote for the FPÖ in the 1999 election. In the 2009 European Parliament election the FPÖ doubled its 2004 results, winning 12.8% of the vote and 2 seats.
In December 2009 the local Carinthia branch of the BZÖ, its stronghold, broke away and founded the Freedom Party in Carinthia FPK; it cooperated with the FPÖ at the federal level, modeling itself on the German CDU/CSU relationship. The leader of the branch, Uwe Scheuch, had fallen out with BZÖ leader Josef Bucher after the latter had introduced a "moderate, right-wing liberal" and more economically oriented ideology. In the 2010 Vienna elections, the FPÖ increased its vote to 25.8% slightly less than the record result of 1996; this was seen as a victory for Strache, due to his popularity among young people. This was only the second time in the postwar era that the SPÖ lost its absolute majority in the city.
After its convention in early 2011 midway between general elections, the FPÖ had a support in notion polls of around 24–29%—at par with the SPÖ and ÖVP, and above the BZÖ. Among people under 30 years of age, the FPÖ had the support of 42%.
In the 2013 legislative election the party obtained 20.51% of votes, while BZÖ scored 3.53% and lost all of its seats. After the election SPÖ and ÖVP renewed their coalition and FPÖ remained in opposition.
In June 2015 the main part of the federal party section of Salzburg split of and formed the Free Party Salzburg.
In the 2016 Austrian presidential election, Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer won the first round of the election, receiving 35.1% of the vote, creating that election the Freedom Party's best eve election result in its history. However, in the second round, Hofer was defeated by Alexander Van der Bellen, who received the support of 50.3% compared to Hofer's 49.7%. In July first the Constitutional Court of Austria voided the results of the second round due to mishandling of postal votes; although the court did not find evidence of deliberate manipulation. The re-vote took place on 4 December 2016 when Van der Bellen won by a significantly larger margin.