Vienna - Austria's coalition government between Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party has come to an end, after a series of policy quarrels culminated in the conservatives' call for early elections Monday. Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer, the leader of the People's Party, said the social democrats' current leadership crisis had led the cabinet into a "dead end" and elections by September were the only way out.
Social democratic Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer made clear he would not run for head of government again, by announcing that he proposed Transport Minister and interim party leader Werner Faymann as the top candidate.
The social democrats will support a parliamentary motion for early elections that could be passed this week.
But Molterer's comment that the social democratic party is "without leadership and is not able to take on a leadership role in federal government" is only one reason for the demise of the cabinet that has been in office for 18 months.
Ever since its inauguration in January 2007, both coalition partners quarreled over who was blocking effective government work.
The conservatives had never accepted their role as junior partner, Gusenbauer said. "In the past one and a half years, the Austrian People's Party strove to hamper the government's work," he said.
The conflicts were apparent once again on Sunday, when the two parties failed to agree on how to reform the ailing social insurance system.
Gusenbauer's standing among his own voters was damaged soon after the last elections in October 2006, after he agreed to a number of concessions to the junior partner. Contrary to earlier promises, the social democrats did not scrap university fees for students, nor did they cancel an order for military jets.
In mid-June, Gusenbauer effectively stepped down as head of the social democrats amid low approval ratings, by appointing Faymann as interim party chief pending his formal election in autumn.
The government crisis culminated in late June, when Gusenbauer and Faymann changed their EU policy by announcing that future European Union treaties should be decided by popular vote. They angered the conservatives by making public this new idea in a letter to Austria's biggest newspaper without informing their coalition partner.
Molterer said Monday that the social democrats had left the common ground of the coalition agreement and called for a "European perspective for our country."
All three opposition parties in parliament support early elections.
The Green Party's chance of being included in a government coalition for the first time was "as high as never before," said deputy party leader Eva Glawischnig.
Werner Faymann, the future top candidate for the social democrats, repeated his position that he would not form a cabinet with the right-wing Freedom Party.
