Social Democrats Win in Austria

Austria's Social Democrats last night celebrated an unexpected, if narrow, general election victory, evicting the Christian Democrat chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, from office after six years in power.

While Alfred Gusenbauer, the Social Democratic leader, primed himself to be chancellor - an outcome that confounded all the opinion polls - he was likely to reach out to Mr Schüssel's party to form a "grand coalition" of the two big parties.

Mr Schüssel's Austrian People's party (OVP) suffered a chastening defeat, down eight points on four years ago, with 34.2% of the vote, compared to 35.7% for the Social Democrats. The hard-right Freedom party, led by the Viennese populist, Heinz-Christian Strache, came third with more than 11%, the Greens mustered 10.5%, and the former extreme-right champion, Jörg Haider, looked likely to scrape into parliament with just over the 4% needed to qualify for seats.

The surprise result meant that Mr Schüssel could still gather a majority in the 183-seat house with the two extreme-right parties, or with the Greens and Mr Haider's projected eight seats.

But Mr Gusenbauer has the first call on trying to form a government. He will have no truck with the two hard-right parties, cannot obtain a majority with the Greens, so is bound to follow last year's example in neighbouring Germany and try to form a big coalition of Social and Christian Democrats.

Mr Schüssel's OVP, tipped to win by around 3 points, appeared crushed by the result, with leaders describing the election as a "bitter loss". The outgoing chancellor has led a coalition with Mr Haider's extreme-right since 2000.