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Last update - 04:20 09/08/2008
Controversial far-right leader Haider to head Austrian rightist faction
By News Agencies
Tags: Austria, Joerg Haider

The executive board of Austria's right-wing Alliance for the Future of Austria party on Friday designated Joerg Haider as its new chief.

The decision is expected to be approved later this month at a special party congress. It paves the way for Haider to resume leadership of the slumping party he created in 2005 after breaking away from the extreme-right Freedom Party.

Haider, now serving as governor of the province of Carinthia, already said last weekend that he would replace Peter Westenthaler, who was recently convicted of providing false testimony about a brawl involving his former bodyguard.
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Haider touched off a scandal by praising an alleged Nazi war criminal found hiding in Austria. Milivoj Asner, a 95-year-old retired Croatian police chief, is accused of persecuting hundreds of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies and dispatching them to their deaths in WWII-era Croatia, which was ruled by a Nazi puppet regime.

During the European soccer championships in June, Asner was spotted in Austrian cafes watching the matches on television. Haider dismissed public outcries for his extradition, calling Asner a treasured citizen who should be allowed to live out his days in peace.

Haider handed over the party's leadership to Westenthaler in 2006. It remains to be seen if Haider will also become the party's top candidate in Sept. 28 national elections. The governing coalition between the center-left Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party collapsed in July after months of acrimony and parties are now repositioning themselves to get the best possible results.

Earlier Friday, Austria's Social Democrats elected Werner Faymann as their new leader, officially replacing Alfred Gusenbauer who held the post for the past eight years.

Friday's vote in Faymann's favor was largely seen as a formality. Faymann, currently the country's infrastructure minister, became acting party head in June after decades as a member of the party.

Faymann will be the party's leading contender in early parliamentary elections in September.

Gusenbauer, who became chancellor after October 2006 elections, had held the party chairmanship since April 2000.

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