Austria's right wing posts election gains

VIENNA, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Austria's right wing has made big gains in parliamentary elections but so far seem unlikely to emerge as a governing coalition partner, experts say.

With Heinz Christian Strache's Freedom Party and Joerg Haider's smaller Alliance for Austria's Future combining for 29 percent of the vote in Austria's Sunday parliamentary elections, the far right posted impressive gains.

But the mainstream Social Democrats and conservative People's Party, which finished first and second in the voting, will think twice before inviting them to join a governing coalition, a Vienna University political scientist told Deutsche Welle Monday.

"The (Social Democrats) will be somewhat tempted" to cooperate with the Freedom Party, said Peter Gerlich, adding there is a rumor that they could try to form a minority government with support from the right-wingers, who ran on an anti-immigrant platform.

But Fritz Plasser of Innsbruck University said that such a coalition would create a deep split among Social Democrats. He told Deutsche Welle that although the Social Democrats successfully pushed a package of social spending bills through Parliament just before the elections, it was the Freedom Party that attracted votes on social issues.

"Supporting the weak helped them," Plasser said.