Word: figl
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Postwar Austria is a political teeter-totter balanced precariously and almost exactly between two parties: the leftist Socialists (73 seats) and the conservative Catholic People's Party (74 seats). The one man who kept everything from tumbling down was Chancellor Leopold Figl, himself a conservative, who for eight years presided over a coalition of the two opposing parties with tact and humor...
Your March 2 article, under the most truthful title "Democracy Wins," gives an excellent evaluation of the meaning and outcome of the Austrian election, but it contains an error as to why the elections were brought about. You state that "the election became necessary when the Socialists bolted [Chancellor] Figl's coalition because they felt that they could not accept rearmament at the expense of their social-welfare program." As TIME has often pointed out, there can be no rearmament in Austria, which has been occupied by American, British, French and Russian troops for more than seven years...
...main parties fought for the people's favor: the anti-Communist Socialists and Chancellor Leopold Figl's Catholic People's Party. Nineteen years ago, Catholics and Socialists fought a bitter civil war, but since 1945 the threat of Communism has forced them into uneasy alliance...
...election became necessary when the Socialists bolted Figl's coalition because they felt they could not accept rearmament at the expense of their social welfare program...
Austria's 4,500,000 voters decided differently. Figl's People's Party polled fewer votes than it did in 1949, but with 74 seats remained the strongest bloc in Parliament. The victors, if there were any, were the Socialists, who upped their score from 67 seats to 73 (only one fewer than the Catholics), and in the popular vote beat the Catholics by 37,000. In Austrian politics, which are often referred to as an "institutionalized deadlock," this meant more stalemate, with both main parties bucking for the premiership. But for neo-Nazis and Communists...