Yearbook 2008
Austria. A new revelation about slave-like captivity in
the middle of a residential neighborhood shook the Austrians
just two years after the fall of 18-year-old Natascha
Kampusch, who managed to escape after being locked up for
eight years. In April, 73-year-old Josef Fritzl was arrested
in Amstetten after it was discovered that he had held his
daughter captive for 24 years in the basement, where he had
abused her. Elisabeth, who was 18 when she was locked up,
gave birth to seven children. Three of them had been kept in
the basement and never seen daylight, while three had grown
up with the family in the house, without knowledge of the
prisoners in the basement. Josef Fritzl had led his wife and
authorities to believe that Elisabeth had joined a religious
sect and left the children on the stairs to the parents'
house. One seventh child had died at an early age. In
November, charges were brought against Josef Fritzl for,
among other things, murder, slavery and rape.
In early July, the government collapsed when the
conservative ÖVP withdrew from the coalition formed in early
2007. ÖVP and the Social Democratic SPÖ - the two major
parties - had had a hard time agreeing on, among other
things, health care, taxes, pensions and education. Even
before the government collapsed and a new election was
announced, Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer had left the SPÖ
leadership post following internal criticism that he had
allowed ÖVP too much dominance. New SPÖ leader became
Transport Minister Werner Faymann.
According to
Countryaah reports, the re-election on September 28 became a stinging defeat
for the departing government parties; together they lost
almost 15 percentage points. SPÖ received 29 percent and ÖVP
26 percent of the votes. The right-wing populists in both
the FPÖ and the outbreak party BZÖ progressed to the same
degree and together received support from 28 percent of the
voters. Thus, the situation was very similar to that which
occurred in 1999, when the right-wing populists led by Jörg
Haider advanced strongly and took office in the government.
At that time, the rest of the EU boycotted Austria for a
period.
Almost two weeks after the election, Jörg Haider died in
a car accident. The investigation showed that he was driving
heavily intoxicated at the double speed allowed on a 70-lane
road. He received a hero's funeral in his home state of
Carinthia. The controversial politician continued to arouse
reactions after his death when it was reported that he had
visited a gay club before the car accident. The party mate
Stefan Petzner, who was first mentioned as a successor,
spoke of Haider as the "man of my life" and the party then
appointed two other members as party leaders and group
leaders in parliament.
In November, a new government coalition was formed
between Social Democrats and the People's Party ÖVP.
Chancellor became the new SPÖ leader Faymann, who agreed
with newly-appointed ÖVP leader Josef Pröll on a new spirit
of cooperation.
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