The death of Jörg Haider in a car accident last weekend has rocked the Austrian political scene just two weeks after parliamentary elections. Haider led the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in the 1990s, when the party saw a dramatic increase in its share of the vote, from 5% in 1986 to 27% in 1999.

As well as leader of the FPÖ, and later the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), Haider had been governor of the state of Carinthia since 1989. As leader of Austria's southernmost state, which has a large Slovene population, Haider implemented policies which, according to Minority Rights Group, were "openly anti-Slovene" and was particularly reticent to allow Slovene-language education.

In elections held on September 27, Austria's moderate parties made considerable losses: the Social Democrats were left with 29% of the vote, the Austrian People's Party with 26%. The country's two far-right parties, the FPÖ and Jörg Haider's BZÖ, which both focused on anti-immigration and anti-EU policies in the run up to the election, came away with 18% and 11% respectively. In reaction to the results, the National Council of Carinthian Slovenes (NSKS) issued a press release highlighting the "risk of democratic, social and institutional fragmentation" as a result of growing support for the far right and accusing centre parties of allowing an "exodus of moderate votes" towards the far-right. The NSKS also denounced the central government's "disdainful" attitude towards Austria's minorities and Carinthia's Slovene population in particular. Haider frequently made negative comments about the Slovene community. He had recently warned of the "threat" posed by Slovene presence in the Austrian Parliament.

Minorities in Austria
Austrian law has protected the country's Croat and Slovene minorities since the State Treaty of 1955. The languages of these communities have official status in the states of Burgenland, Carinthia and Styria. Excluding the more recent immigrant population, which Haider strongly opposed, Austria's most numerous ethnic minorities are the Croats in Burgenland (19,374), Slovenes in Carinthia (12,554) and Styria (2,192), Hungarians in Burgenland and Vienna (25,884), Czechs (11,035) and Jews (8,140).

• L'Express.fr: L'Autriche sous le choc de la mort de Jörg Haider
• Slovenian Press Agency: Officials Expressing Condolences over Haider's Death
• Associated Press: Austrian Social Democrats asked to form government
• Council of Carinthian Slovenes (NSKS)
• Federal Government of Carinthia
• Carintian office for the Slovene minority
• Minority Rights Group directory