Joerg Haider, Austrian leader who favored the far right; at 58

JOERG HAIDER

BERLIN - Joerg Haider, the controversial and charismatic far-right politician who transformed Austria's politics, died of injuries sustained in a car accident early yesterday. He was 58.

Mr. Haider's death touched off shock and mourning in Austria, and it occurred at a crucial political moment for the country: between the parliamentary election in Austria two weeks ago, in which right-wing parties made tremendous gains, and the formation of the new government.

Mr. Haider, the governor of the province of Carinthia and the leader of the right-wing Alliance for Austria's Future, was a populist politician known for his strong anti-immigrant and anti-European Union stances.

He was most notorious for a series of outrageous statements, including praising the Waffen-SS and the employment policies of the Nazi government.

Yet in Austria, his legacy may be the way that he helped put an end to the dominance of the two biggest political parties, the left-leaning Social Democratic Party and the conservative People's Party.

"The spectrum in Austria is totally different today from what it was yesterday," said Thomas Hofer, an independent political consultant in Vienna. "This is the end of an era. He was more controversial than any other, but also one of the most politically talented individuals in the country's history."

Austria's two mainstream parties suffered significant losses in September's election. The Social Democratic Party and the People's Party had been governing together in an uneasy coalition.

Nearly a third of voters voiced their discontent by turning to Mr. Haider's former party, the Freedom Party, and his new one, the Alliance for Austria's Future, which placed fourth, nearly tripling its share of the vote to 11 percent from the last vote two years ago.

The result was a political comeback to the national stage for Mr. Haider, after leaving the Freedom Party, which he led and raised to prominence in the decades before. But his death also left the Alliance leaderless at a crucial moment. "For us, this is the end of the world," said Stefan Petzner, the party's secretary-general.

Austrian news media were filled with photographs of Mr. Haider's black sedan, crushed after flipping over several times. Mr. Haider was wearing his seat belt at the time of the accident, the police said, but his injuries were so grave that he had died by the time he reached the hospital.

Mr. Haider's death has led to an outpouring of emotion hardly ever seen in Austria, compared by some observers to the swell of mourning in Britain after Princess Diana's death in 1997. Petzner, 27, openly wept on Austrian television recalling how he had said goodbye on Friday night to his boss. Gerhard Döerfler, Mr. Haider's deputy and now the acting governor of Carinthia, said, "The sun has fallen from the sky."

Condolences came from across the political spectrum. President Heinz Fischer, a Social Democrat, called Mr. Haider a "politician of great talent," and said he was "deeply affected" by the news. Even those opposed to Mr. Haider mourned his death yesterday. "I did not particularly like him," said Almut Rieken, 67, in the village of Lanzendorf in Carinthia, "but I still feel touched by it."