Final Austrian vote confirms centre-left

VIENNA - Austria's centre left Social Democrats were confirmed as the strongest party after votes cast by absentees in the October 1 election had been counted, paving the way for talks to form a government.

The Social Democrats' lead on Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's conservative People's Party narrowed slightly to one percentage point after more than 200,000 additional votes had been counted, strengthening Schuessel's hand in the talks.

The environmentalist Greens inched some 500 votes ahead of the far-right Freedom Party to secure third place after the final count. But they did not win enough for a majority with the Social Democrats.

That still left a grand coalition between Social Democrats, the surprise election winner, and Schuessel's People's Party, which lost a quarter of its support, as the most likely option to form a government.

The two have been skirmishing ever since the October 1 poll. Social Democrat leader Alfred Gusenbauer accused conservatives of a sullen refusal to accept defeat. The People's Party was enraged by what it portrayed as Social Democrat triumphalism.

Gusenbauer and Schuessel, who will lead the People's Party's negotiation team, are set to clash on tax policy, welfare state reform, privatisation, education and Austria's planned purchase of 18 jet fighters.

The Social Democrats' 68 seats and the People's Party's 66 seats in the 183-strong parliament were confirmed in the final count. Freedom and the Greens both won 21. Joerg Haider's populist Alliance for Austria's Future just scraped into parliament with 7 seats.

Schuessel has a theoretical alternative majority if he teams up with the two rightist parties, but he has ruled out this option both before and after the election.

President Heinz Fischer is expected to ask Social Democrat Gusenbauer on Wednesday to form a government, formally kicking off coalition talks.

Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser said he might stay on in the job under a new coalition government. Grasser is formally independent but close to Schuessel's People's Party.

- REUTERS