The People's Party Wins

Austria's two major political parties have ruled the country in a "black and red" coalition ever since World War II, mainly because neither could win enough seats in Parliament to rule alone. Last week's election was expected to follow the pattern. Instead, something quite startling happened: losing two seats, the "red" Socialists' parliamentary delegation fell to 74, while the "black" People's Party increased its number of seats by four to 85--an absolute majority in the 165-seat Parliament.

The Socialists had only themselves to blame for their setback. Badly misreading his countrymen's sentiments, Socialist Leader Dr. Bruno Pittermann, 60, refused to dissociate his party from the Communists, who threw their support to Socialist candidates in all but one district. But Communist support was, as one observer put it, "ein Judaskuss." To most Austrians, Communism still means the rapacious Soviet occupation troops. As a result, Socialists by the droves deserted to the People's Party, giving the conservatives 48.3% of the nation's 4,530,294 ballots. The Socialist cause was also not helped by a former colleague, onetime Interior Minister Franz Olah, 56, who was expelled from the party 18 months ago and campaigned as an independent, devoting most of his speeches to exposing the Socialists' shortcomings.

Despite the People's Party's surprise victory, no one expected the coalition era to end. "In Britain, it is possible to govern with a hair-thin majority, but Austria lacks the democratic tradition Britain has," explained Chancellor Josef Klaus, 55, leader of the People's Party. "We are still too weak and the Socialists too strong for us to govern alone." Nevertheless, he intends to use the victory to unknot Austria's badly stalemated governmental processes.

Though the twelve major ministries are again likely to be more or less evenly divided along party lines, Klaus will probably pry Socialist Christian Broda out of the Justice Ministry, which has become a stumbling block for red-black cooperation. Furthermore, Klaus hopes to revitalize Parliament, which had become little more than a rubber-stamp assembly, receiving bills only after the Cabinet had put them in all but final shape. With a majority of his own, Klaus intends to use Parliament to shape his legislative program. Tops on his list: a speedup of negotiations for Austria's associate membership in the Common Market, incentives for greater economic growth and better public housing.

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