Voters move Austria to left

VIENNA, Austria – Austria’s opposition Social Democrats won nationwide elections on Sunday, swinging the country to the center-left after more than six years of influence by the extreme right, final unofficial returns showed.

With all but absentee ballots counted, the center-left bloc had 35.7 percent of the vote and the People’s Party trailed with 34.2 percent, Interior Minister Liese Prokop said.

Although Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel did not formally concede the election, he congratulated the leader of the Social Democrats, Alfred Gusenbauer, who would likely become the country’s next chancellor. “We are a democratic country,” Schuessel said.

Schuessel said he didn’t blame anyone for the disappointing results, saying: “I carry the main responsibility for my party and I do that with conviction.”

Gusenbauer, meanwhile, declined to proclaim outright victory, saying he would wait for all the votes to be counted. Officials said there were about 250,000 valid absentee votes to be tallied between now and Oct. 9, when the final results must be certified.

“I never gave up hope. I always said there would be a surprise on Sunday,” he said. “The people in Austria are of the opinion that yes, we’re a rich and well-off country but it’s not all distributed fairly enough and therefore people have the need for a correction.”

Among other things, the Social Democrats have promised to lower the number of unemployed by 100,000 and reduce salary differences between men and women. The party had been in opposition since 2000 following more than three decades as the top vote-getter.

The current governing coalition is made up of the People’s Party and the rightist Alliance for the Future of Austria, which had vowed during the campaign to reduce the number of foreigners in Austria by 30 percent over the next three years.

The far right Freedom Party finished third with 11.2 percent of the vote.