Austria's Ruling Party Loses Regional Vote

VIENNA - Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's party lost a regional election on Sunday despite his tough stance on Turkish membership of the European Union, which many had seen as an attempt to shore up support.

The Social Democrats won control of the southern province of Styria, capturing what has been a stronghold for Schuessel's conservative People's Party since 1945, according to provisional results.

Diplomats and media commentators have said Schuessel tried to gain support with his stance on Turkey after rising unemployment and unpopular cuts in Austria's generous welfare state damaged support for his government.

Austria has been alone in the European Union in opposing the terms for launching entry talks with Turkey on Monday and is demanding a clear alternative to full membership. Opinion polls suggest 80 percent of Austrians oppose Turkey joining the bloc.

Diplomats, however, have said they had hoped Vienna would drop its opposition after polls closed at 1400 GMT in Styria. EU foreign ministers must agree a negotiating mandate in an emergency meeting in Luxembourg on Sunday night.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a last-ditch appeal to Schuessel to end Vienna's obstruction of the membership talks in a telephone call just before the meeting.

After 60 Years

Results shown by Austrian broadcaster ORF said Schuessel's conservatives had won 38.7 percent of the vote, down 8.6 percentage points from the previous vote, behind the Social Democrats at 41.7 percent, who gained 9.4 percentage points.

"I am struggling to believe it because historically it is an unbelievable result after ... 60 years," Styrian Social Democrat frontrunner Franz Voves told ORF.

The Communist Party would join the regional parliament for the first time in 35 years with 6.3 percent of the vote, ORF said, filling a void left by the break-up of Joerg Haider's far-right Freedom Party.

The election in Styria and polls this month in the eastern province of Burgenland and in Vienna are the first votes since Haider broke away from the Freedom Party and founded his own Alliance for the Future of Austria.

Styria, the home province of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is one of nine Austrian provinces.

The Freedom Party failed to enter the regional assembly, winning 4.6 percent of the vote, while Haider's new party only managed 1.7 percent, ORF said.

The setback for Schuessel's ruling party follows the loss of the western province of Salzburg to the Social Democrats last year.

Peter Hajek of pollster OGM said the chancellor was unlikely to call an early national vote due to his coalition's unpopularity. National elections are due in the second half of next year.

"The People's Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria have no option other than to keep working," he said.

He said Schuessel's stance on Turkey was part of a long-term strategy ahead of Austria assuming the EU presidency at the start of next year and a parliamentary election.