Wilhelm Molterer, current Austrian finance minister and vice chancellor, was elected the new president of the People's Party of Austria (OeVP) on Saturday in Salzburg.

Molterer had no competitors in the election with a landslide vote of 97 percent to succeed ex-chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.

The new OeVP leader vowed to reinforce the party's role in the coalition government, predicting that it would be the winner of the next parliamentary election in 2010.

The OeVP was defeated by the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPOe) in the October parliamentary elections. In January, OeVP and SPOe agreed to form a grand coalition government after at least 11 rounds of negotiations.

Source: Xinhua