Chancellor Quits After Waldheim Vote

Austria’s Socialist-led coalition government changed leaders Monday, a day after controversial former U.N. chief Kurt Waldheim, an independent conservative, defeated the Socialist candidate for the largely ceremonial post of president.

The switch clearly had more to do with the Socialists’ poor showing in Sunday’s elections than with the international furor caused by charges that Waldheim had knowledge of Nazi war crimes committed during his World War II service as a German army officer in Yugoslavia and Greece.

Chancellor Fred Sinowatz resigned and was replaced by a member of his Cabinet, Finance Minister Franz Vranitsky, 48, a member of the conservative wing of the Socialist Party.

Vranitsky is a former banker with a reputation for fiscal toughness who could deal effectively with Austria’s pressing economic problems, which were of greater concern to many of Austria’s 7.5 million citizens than the furor over Waldheim’s past.

Political power in Austria rests with the chancellor, chosen by the majority in Parliament, and the Socialists want to stop the conservative trend reflected by Waldheim’s election victory before parliamentary elections that are scheduled next year.

8% Vote Spread

Kurt Steyrer, the Socialist candidate for president, was beaten by Waldheim, an independent running as the candidate of the conservative People’s Party, by nearly eight percentage points. The spread was 53.9% to 46.1%.

Waldheim received 2,464,598 votes, 357,281 more than the 2,107,317 ballots cast for his lackluster opponent.

“We have great internal strength in the party,” Sinowatz, 57, said in announcing his resignation. “We must have strength to adapt to this new political situation.”

Sinowatz said that the Socialists, who govern with the help of a small coalition partner, the right-wing Freedom Party, will not call an early election but will work to revitalize the Socialist Party in preparation for next year’s campaign.

Vranitzky, the new chancellor, said Monday that “I do not rule out other changes in government.”

Sinowatz’s resignation after three years as head of government came as international criticism mounted over Waldheim’s election.

Israel recalled its ambassador to Austria for consultations, and here in Vienna, Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal called for an international committee to examine all of the war records dealing with Waldheim’s career in the Germany army.

The former U.N. secretary general has been accused of serving as an intelligence officer with a German army group in the Balkans from 1942 until 1945 commanded by Gen. Alexander Loehr, who was executed in 1947 by Yugoslavia for war crimes. Waldheim was also said to have been based in Greece at a time in 1944 when 40,000 Jews were rounded up and shipped to Nazi concentration camps.

Waldheim, 67, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Wiesenthal said Monday: “The matter of Mr. Waldheim was not finished by the election. I have already appealed to Yugoslavia to release all they documents they have and I proposed that all the interested countries--Greece, Yugoslavia, Austria, West Germany, Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom--create a committee of experts to examine the war documents.”

A Jewish survivor of Nazi concentration camps, Wiesenthal has not joined such organizations as the New York-based World Jewish Congress in accusing Waldheim, a first lieutenant during the war, of complicity in war crimes.

“His rank was so low that he could not make any recommendations,” Wiesenthal said, “so he cannot be responsible for what his superiors decided. But he knew everything.”

Some of Waldheim’s critics argued that even if he were not involved in war crimes, he lied about his military past and therefore was unworthy to have been a candidate for the presidency of Austria.

West German Messages

In West Germany on Monday, President Richard von Weizsaecker and Chancellor Helmut Kohl sent congratulatory messages to Waldheim, but they were described as “routine” rather than warm, personal endorsements.

A statement from West Germany’s radical Greens party said that Waldheim’s election was “the greatest scandal of Austria’s post-war history.”

In Brussels, leaders of the 12-nation European Communities were reported to have observed normal diplomatic courtesy by sending Waldheim congratulations on his election.

In the Netherlands, Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek said he wondered whether Waldheim would be able fully to perform his presidential tasks.

In France, Premier Jacques Chirac said he has not seen “decisive proof” against Waldheim and that he will not interfere in the affairs of a friendly country. But France’s human rights minister, Claude Malhuret, said he will recommend that France not receive Waldheim as president.

In Britain, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II were reportedly planning to send a message with the “normal courtesies” to Waldheim.