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Conservative Austria was in a state of shock yesterday after the male successor to Jorg Haider admitted a long-standing "special relationship" with the far-right leader who died in a high-speed car crash this month.
Stefan Petzner, 27, who recently replaced Mr Haider as leader of the right-wing Alliance for the Future of Austria and has often appeared in tears on television since his death, in effect outed himself as his gay lover while being interviewed on an Austrian radio breakfast show. "I had to go to him; I had to go to him," Mr Petzner said in his highly emotional interview as he told how he rushed to the hospital where the body of Mr Haider, 52, was lying.
He said he had felt a "magnetic attraction" to Mr Haider, whom he met five years ago while working as a cosmetics reporter. Mr Petzner said: "We had a relationship that went far beyond friendship. Jrg and I were connected by something truly special. He was the man of my life.
"He insisted that Mr Haider's widow, Claudia, did not object to his relationship. "She loved him as a woman. He loved her as a man. I loved him in a completely different and personal way. She understood that." But Mr Petzner's sister, Christiane, suggested in a newspaper interview that Mrs Haider had not always been so understanding.
"Sometimes Claudia was jealous because Stefan would spend more time with her husband than she did."Clearly embarrassed by the revelations, party officials are trying to limit the political damage, and cancelled forthcoming interviews with Mr Petzner. But their attempts to prevent his radio interview being re-broadcast were unsuccessful. Some say Mr Petzner may soon be replaced as leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria.
Photographs in the Austrian media show Mr Haider in a gay bar shortly before the crash. Witnesses at a party where the two men were seen together on the night of the crash were said Mr Haider had left in a hurry after an emotional argument with his deputy.
The far-right leader crashed his Volkswagen limousine while drunk and driving at more than double the speed limit, as he made his way to his mother's birthday party in the early hours. He is reported to have told his chauffeur to go home. More than 25,000 people flocked to his quasi-state funeral in Klagenfurt, the capital of the Austrian province of Carinthia, where he was governor for more than a decade.
He died just days after his party had more than doubled its share of the vote in Austria's general election, and speculation swirled that he would again figure in Austrian national politics. Nearly a decade ago, Mr Haider had been part of the ruling coalition with his Freedom Party, triggering EU sanctions on Austria after he praised Adolf Hitler's employment policies and described Nazi SS veterans as "decent men".
Austrian attitudes to gays in politics contrast sharply with neighbouring Germany, where several politicians have outed themselves as homosexuals without anyone batting an eyelid. Rumours that Mr Haider was gay or bisexual surfaced in Austria nearly a decade ago. But the leader, who has two children with Claudia, refused to discuss them, fearing they would alienate thousands of his ultra-right followers.
- INDEPENDENT
