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WORLD> Europe
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Was Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider gay?
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-25 11:26 VIENNA, Austria -- Was Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider secretly gay? Speculation that he led a double life raged this week after his political protege, Stefan Petzner, publicly called Haider "the man of my life" in a tearful tribute to the former Freedom Party boss who was killed in a car crash earlier this month.
Petzner, 27, did not say explicitly that he and Haider, a 58-year-old married father of two, were gay or had a sexual relationship. But Petzner's tears and the tone of his remarks, along with photographs purportedly showing Haider in a gay bar on the eve of his death, have raised questions about whether the ultraconservative nationalist had something to hide. "This can't go on," said Michael Fleischhacker, editor-in-chief of the daily Die Presse. "Stefan Petzner needs to make a decision: Either he describes what was so special about his relationship with Joerg Haider, or he stops publicly playing the role of Haider's successor and widow," Fleischhacker wrote in his blog. Haider died October 11 after crashing his car in the southern province of Carinthia, where he was governor. Investigators say he was drunk and speeding at twice the posted limit when the car plowed into a concrete post and flipped. Haider was alone in the vehicle, and although authorities have said there is no evidence to suggest foul play, his widow has refused to have Haider's body cremated until independent forensics experts take another look at the remains. In death, as in life, Haider remains steeped in controversy. When his Freedom Party won 27 percent of the vote in 1999 elections, and joined Austria's coalition government early in 2000, the European Union slapped the country with months of diplomatic sanctions in protest of statements by Haider that came off sounding anti-Semitic. Though Haider praised aspects of Hitler's labor policies, criticized immigrants as lazy, criminal and corrupt, and seemed contemptuous of Jews, neither he nor his party ever said anything derogatory about homosexuals, or made traditional family values a key campaign theme. Haider had left the Freedom Party to form the somewhat more moderate Alliance for the Future of Austria, and Petzner, his deputy, succeeded him as party chief after Haider's death. Together, the two rightist parties won about 29 percent of the vote in last month's parliamentary elections. Within hours of the fatal crash, Petzner went on national television. Sobbing, he declared: "For us, it's like the end of the world." That in itself struck some as a bit unusual. But late last week, in an emotional interview broadcast on Austrian radio, Petzner went further. "We had a special relationship that went far beyond friendship," he said. "Joerg and I were connected by something truly special. He was the man of my life ... I loved him as a best friend." |
