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-3THE HALCYON DAYS LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION AND GOVERNOR OF CARINTHIA (1987-1990) "Whatever else ]org Haider may be, he is also the Socialists' wonder weapon against the GVP" -Gunther Nenning, November, 1986 MOCK'S BAD LUCK: THE GREAT COALITION AGAIN The first few days after the 1986 election were to set the stage of Austrian politics for more than a dozen years. The Wende, the thoroughgoing change after fifteen years of Socialist leadership, had not quite come about. Mock admitted he could have fought either Haider or Vranitzky but not both at the same time. True, the Socialists lost, but so did the Christian Democrats. If they entered a Great Coalition now, it would not mean reverting to the days of Figl and Raab; instead they would be locked into a combination with the Socialists in the driver's seat. Electorally, the Great Coalition had taken a beating even before it was formed. There was, of course, an alternative. Mock could form a coalition with Haider. It is plausible to argue that this is exactly what Mock had in mind. He did not find a majority for this view among the party elders, however. The governors of Salzburg and Vorarlberg agreed with him. Theirs were prosperous but small states. (Among the really big states at that time, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl would also still have welcomed such a choice.)l Others were diametrically opposed: Robert Graf, Mock's old rival for the position of floor leader, tried to show his disapproval of any such course by resigning from the negotiating committee with a flourish. Another prominent anti-Haider politician, Vienna's Erhard Busek, pleaded to remain in opposition. Even Styria's 53 54 THE HALCYON DAYS Josef Krainer, who was always willing to try something new, no longer believed in Mock's luck.2 But the biggest battalions of the OVP come from Mocks own state of Lower Austria. The Lower Austrians counted as conservatives; yet their leaders, Governor Siegfried Ludwig and OAAB-boss Robert Lichal, argued against a partnership with the Freedom Party; too. As one insider put it two disastrous elections later, "And they have asked Mock's forgiveness ever since." Their vote was decisive. Mock bowed to majority opinion; he did not carry the question to a party congress but loyally negotiated with the Socialists first.3 The negotiations that led to the reestablishment of Austria's Great Coalition actually took two more months. The Freedom Party ministers of the caretaker government did not relinquish their posts before January 1987. Yet the outcome was no longer in doubt. After seventeen years in the wilderness, the OVP would enter government as a junior partner. The concession the SPO was forced to make was to hand over the Foreign Ministry to Mock. That was a gift horse, because keeping ones opposite number busy with ceremonial duties abroad was a good way of ensuring minimal impact with the voters. Yet Kreisky; whose hobby horse had been foreign policy; never forgave Vranitzky and publicly broke with him. Later, he called the dissolution of the coalition with the FPO "a historic mistake.,,4 Many FPO supporters even saw the election returns of 1986 as a freak result that could probably never be repeated. Yet nothing succeeds like success: In the weeks after the Great Coalition was formed, polls showed the FPO riding even higher. For the next two years, polls consistently showed the FPO at about 12 to 13 percent. In the beginning, this could still be written off as postelection euphoria that would not stand the test of time. But the regional elections, due to be held in Burgenland and in Vienna in 1987, provided solid evidence for FPO wins, which went considerably beyond the 1986 surprise result. It is important to realize that half the distance traveled by the FPO from its dismal ratings in the summer of 1986 to its triumphant result of 27 percent in the fall of 1999 was actually the result of Haider's first few months "in power." Most of these gains in the first five years of Haider's tenure came at the expense of the conservatives of the OVP For a party that had flirted with (if not promised ) a break with socialism, their willingness to serve under Vranitzky was a curious halfway house that satisfied nobody. In the first few months after the election, their ratings plummeted dramatically. Polls gave them little more than one-third of the vote.5 The...

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