Austria Kicks off Election for New Parliament

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 25, 2002

Austria Kicks off Election for New Parliament

Austria Sunday kicked off the election for a new parliament.

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Austria Sunday kicked off the election for a new parliament.

The outcome of the election is expected to be announced on Sunday night.

After months of infighting within the Freedom Party, the rightist populist component in the outgoing coalition government, Federal Chancellor of Austria Wolfgang Scheussel asked in early September to dissolve the parliament and hold early parliamentary elections. Scheussel is also leader of the co-ruling conservative People's Party.

The current parliament's four-year term expires in October nextyear. The opposition Social Democratic Party now holds 65 seats inthe 183-member parliament, the Freedom Party and the People's Party have 52 seats each and the opposition Greens Party holds 14.

Latest surveys showed that both the People's Party and the Social Democratic Party have high hopes of winning around 40 percent of the vote and becoming the largest party in parliament, trailed by the Green Party and the Freedom Party each with about 10 percent of support.

Analysts said the most likely scenarios could be a renewed People's party- Freedom Party coalition or an alliance of the Socialist Democratic Party and the Green Party.

Many Austrians favor a stable new government which can devote itself to reviving a sluggish economy and tackling high unemployment in the country, they said.

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