In Austria, Name Not on Ballot Is Crucial One : Politics: The campaign to succeed pariah Waldheim has been lackluster. But some say isolation has spurred self-examination.

Along the cobbled promenade of old Vienna’s pedestrian quarter, a young girl playing Mozart on her violin blissfully ignores the Andean Indians playing guitars and pan flutes a few yards away. Tweedy old women in sensible hats weave their dachshunds past leather-clad adolescents on skateboards. The springtime is fragile here, bright one moment and brooding the next.

Annaliese Rohrer contemplates her country’s future over a steaming mokka, and her assessment is every bit as jolting as the thick coffee in its delicate little cup.

“Everything in Austria is ambiguous,” she declares. “Everything is deceit. Nothing is what it seems to be.”

That seems especially true of this Sunday’s presidential elections. The campaign among four candidates has been lackluster to the point of stultification, and the vote amounts to little more than a routine balloting for a ceremonial head of state.

Transport Minister Rudolf Streicher, a Socialist, is slightly ahead, but no one is expected to win the clear majority needed to avoid a runoff election May 24.

However, the most significant name is the one that does not appear on the ballot, the one it is considered impolite to even mention: Kurt Waldheim.

For the international shunning of the former U.N. secretary general over his murky war record also turns out not to be what it seemed. Even Western diplomats now privately say his reputation was unfairly destroyed, that at most he was proved a coward but not a criminal.

And many argue that his six years of isolation ironically helped rather than hindered Austria, serving as a catalyst for a national self-examination that has filled Austrians with both pride and shame.

Now, as Austrians bid a silent farewell to their pariah president, this tiny Alpine nation of nearly 8 million finds itself at a crucial turning point--historically, politically, culturally, economically and, most of all, emotionally.

Repression has always been “our national passion,” said Rohrer, a chief political correspondent for the respected daily newspaper Die Presse.

But the changing face of Europe is now forcing Austria to redefine itself, and the one lesson the Waldheim scandal brought home is that denial can destroy you.

It is a time of deep angst on the Danube, with Austrians debating drastic changes in a system that has changed very little since the end of World War II.

The biggest question now is whether to join the European Community, a decision expected to be put to the people in the mid-1990s.

“There are three difficult areas of negotiation--environment, agriculture and neutrality,” said Foreign Minister Alois Mock, a strong EC advocate.

Environmentalists argue that EC standards are lower than Austria’s, and they complain of pollution brought by the tremendous increase in traffic as goods are trucked along north-south routes via Austria.

Polls have shown a steady decline in public approval for EC membership, although a slight majority still favors it. Fearful of competition and the loss of state subsidies, farmers and small retailers are among the most vocal opponents.

Waldheim’s decision not to run for reelection brought a sigh of relief from the pro-EC forces, who worried about antagonizing European neighbors during negotiations for membership.

Although the president is traditionally an elder statesman and more figurehead than political player, the head of state would obviously be expected to be a subtle lobbyist for Austria--a role that a boycotted official such as Waldheim would find impossible to play.

Reform is also on the agenda in domestic politics, which has been ruled by blatant cronyism and corruption since the war ended.

“To get anything at all, you have to present your party book,” said a Western diplomat. “You can’t get an apartment if you’re not in the right party. Nurses are denied promotions. Even janitors need party identification.”

The person credited most with challenging and embarrassing the old boys’ network is in fact a brash young populist who has gone on record praising the employment policies of the Third Reich.

Joerg Haider is the embodiment of the Austrian enigma.

As the charismatic leader of the Freedom Party, Haider has tapped into widespread worries that the flood of Eastern European immigrants will eat away at Austria’s high standard of living.

His timing was brilliant, analysts say. Disillusionment has cost the two main parties half a million voters combined since the last presidential election in 1986, according to pollster Peter Ulram.

What most diplomats and Austrian political analysts agree was the watershed for this country came last summer, when Chancellor Franz Vranitzky publicly acknowledged Austrian complicity in the Holocaust for the first time.

Vranitzky hinted at increasing reparations beyond the small, token payments already made to Holocaust victims, and revisions were recently made in anti-neo-Nazi laws to facilitate convictions.

“Perhaps the Waldheim affair was good in the historical sense,” said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It made Austrians discuss their past. It served as a stimulus for debate. It made people here think about it and confront it.”