Joerg Haider wants to be chancellor

Joerg Haider (pictured), the ultra-right politician who turned Austria into an international pariah less than a decade ago because of his sympathetic views about Nazi Germany is set to stage a comeback in his country's elections at the weekend. When he was part of the Austrian government in 1999, Haider attended a rally of Nazi SS veterans, describing them as "men of honour", and praised Hitler's employment policies, sentiments that led to sanctions being imposed on Austria by the EU.

Now 58, Haider has been mostly out of national politics ever since, but in Sunday's parliamentary elections he is hoping to return with a result that will leave him holding the balance of power, and maybe even offer him the chance of becoming head of state.

In an interview at the headquarters of his Alliance for the Future of Austria party in Vienna, he told the Independent: "I want to run for the post of Chancellor of Austria – I am convinced that I can offer an alternative to those voters who have had enough of the failures of the outgoing grand coalition government." (Continued below)

And his hopes are far from fanciful. Austria's grand coalition, comprising the conservative People's Party and the centre-left Social Democrats, collapsed in July after months of in-fighting. Neither of the two parties wants to form another alliance. Opinion polls published this week suggest that each will secure only around 25 per cent of the vote. The forecasts suggest that a further 25 per cent of votes will go to Austria's populist far-right bloc comprising the Freedom Party and Haider's Alliance.

Haider’s friends and supporters down the years have included Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel. In February 2000, the Daily Telegraph, then owned by Black, ran two articles, both by Jewish authors, arguing that Haider should not be ostracised by international public opinion. The first, written by Amiel, said Haider was the victim of a campaign of “political hysteria” mounted by the Socialist International. The second, entitled “Let's not be beastly to the Austrians,” was by the publisher Lord [George] Weidenfeld.

Later the same month, the Blacks were alleged to be the financiers of a trip Haider made to Canada, during which he tried to woo Jewish-Canadian politicians - much to their disgust. He was also refused a request for a special guided tour of the Montreal Holocaust Museum, which was seen as a naked attempt to stage a photo opportunity.