Knittelfelder FPÖ Assembly 2002

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The Knittelfelder FPÖ Assembly 2002 was an extraordinary party congress of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) on September 7, 2002 in the Styrian town of Knittelfeld . The events of this meeting led to a change of power within the party, to the resignation of several FPÖ ministers, thus to the break of the first FPÖ- ÖVP coalition under Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel and finally early new elections ( Nationalrat election in Austria 2002 ).

The events in connection with the meeting were known in the media as the "Knittelfelder Putsch", the "party rebels" in the Freedom Party sometimes collectively referred to as "Knittelfelder".

prehistory

After the National Council election in 1999 , which was successful for the FPÖ and the subsequent formation of a government, Jörg Haider resigned as FPÖ party chairman in February 2000, but continued to exert great influence as a "simple party member". In the summer of 2002 he took steps to influence the course of the federal party in his favor.

Due to the flood disaster of August 2002 , the Schüssel government, with the consent of the FPÖ ministers, decided to postpone the tax reform that the FPÖ had promised to the voters. This and other differences of opinion prompted Haider and other people from the right wing of the party such as Ewald Stadler to demand that the party leadership, under Susanne Riess-Passer , who is considered to be more liberal, call a special party conference and collect the signatures of the elected delegates.

On September 2, the party secretary received around 380 signatures (from 751 full delegates). According to the statutes, the party leadership had to call a special party conference within four weeks. As a result, members of the party leadership, including ministers represented in the government, threatened to resign if the signatures for the special party conference were not withdrawn. Instead of calling the party congress, the party leadership negotiated a compromise, especially with Haider.

During these negotiations, Jörg Haider invited the signatories to a meeting in Knittelfeld on September 4th.

course

Around 400 delegates gathered in Knittelfeld, including Jörg Haider, but not the then party chairwoman Riess-Passer. The symbolic highlight was the demonstrative tearing of the compromise paper negotiated between Riess-Passer and Haider at the lectern by the Carinthian delegate Kurt Scheuch . Haider is said to have instructed him to “tear up” the paper in the figurative sense, but Scheuch had misunderstood this and interpreted it literally. The delegates acclaimed another compromise proposal, the "Knittelfelder Agreement".

consequences

On the following day, due to these events, Vice Chancellor Riess-Passer, Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser and Club Chairman Peter Westenthaler resigned. New elections followed on November 24th . The FPÖ lost almost two-thirds of its 1999 voters and fell from 26.9% to 10.0% of the vote. The coalition with the ÖVP was nevertheless continued, but the FPÖ had to give up several ministerial offices.

At the request of Haider, Mathias Reichhold , who was replaced by Herbert Haupt after 40 days, was the new federal party leader of the FPÖ instead of Riess-Passer .

After the National Council election in November, Grasser held office as a non-party finance minister in the Federal Government Schüssel II (ÖVP-FPÖ or ÖVP-BZÖ coalition) for one legislative period , but was closely related to the ÖVP and even briefly became Vice Chancellor after the National Council election in 2006 considered for the ÖVP. Westenthaler returned in 2006 for the election campaign for the National Council election as the top candidate for Haider's party, which had since split off from the FPÖ under the name BZÖ .

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