FOUNDATION OF THE BZÖ IN 2005

In 2005, Jörg Haider split away with the BZÖ and wanted to, as it were, "close down" the FPÖ. That did not succeed, however.

On 4 April 2005, the leadership of the FPÖ – led first and foremost by Carinthian Governor Jörg Haider – announced that it was leaving the FPÖ and founding a new party called the "Bündnis Zukunft Österreich" (Alliance for the Future of Austria), or “BZÖ" for short.

The reasons for this were rooted in the years of squabbling over the Freedom Party's participation in government. Jörg Haider was not a member of this government’s ministerial team and criticised it constantly. Since Knittelfeld in 2002, the party proved unable to recover from these conflicts.

The complete government team and almost the whole of the parliamentary party switched to the BZÖ with Haider, leaving the Freedom Party with a mountain of debt.

Yet with the exception of the Carinthian branch, more or less all FPÖ provincial branches remained with the mother party and thus the essential structures of the FPÖ were secured. Initially, Hilmar Kabas took over the leadership of the FPÖ, and then on 23 April 2005, Heinz Christian Strache was elected as the new Party Chairman.

The first major election after the split was that for the Vienna provincial parliament, where the FPÖ under Strache gained around 15 per cent of the vote and the BZÖ under Haider just over one per cent.

Further article: From black-blue to party crisis.

Here is the film