Austrian Govt Faces Vote Test Of Economic Measures

The ballots will also be a test for the far right, which is coping with the void left by Joerg Haider.

Austrians will have an opportunity to express their views on tax cuts and economic stimulus measures enacted by a reconstituted coalition government when they vote in two regional elections on Sunday.

The ballots will also be a test for the far right, which is coping with the void left by Joerg Haider, a charismatic and popular leader killed in a car crash last October.

The centre-left Social Democrats, who won by a small margin in the September national election and formed a coalition with the centre-right People's Party, are leading polls for the regional parliament elections in both Salzburg and Carinthia.

In Salzburg, Social Democrat Gabi Burgstaller made measures against the economic downturn the mainstay of her campaign and looked set to be re-elected governor.

It was the financial crisis and a lack of alternatives that pushed the Social Democrats and the People's Party to renew their alliance at a national level, although they were unhappy bedfellows in the previous government.

Since then, the global downturn has accelerated and the Austrian economy declined in the fourth quarter for the first time in eight years.

The coalition government has moved up a gear and dropped its internal bickering to implement tax cuts and stimulus measures worth more than 5 billion euros ($6.34 billion) and a rescue package for Austrian banks.

SPECTRE OF HAIDER

In Carinthia, the economy has been overshadowed by Haider, who was its governor for 10 years and one of the Alpine Republic's few internationally recognised public figures.

"A campaign with the tragically deceased Haider", "A dead man is spearheading us", "And above all, the spectre of Joerg Haider" have been newspaper headlines over the past week.

Both far-right parties, which between them received a third of votes in the national election, have been fiercely staking their claim to the populist leader's legacy.

"We will look after your Carinthia," said the posters of Alliance for Austria's future, the far-right splinter party founded by Haider after internal disputes within the Freedom Party.

The cult of Haider in his former stronghold was waning, however, and people were focusing on the economy, said Guenther Ogris, of the SORA Institute for Social Research and Analysis.

"The traditional Alliance voter base could be influenced by nostalgia, but whether the young voters or the floating voters will be is more doubtful," he said.