Joerg Haider, the former leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, announced Friday that he was withdrawing from national politics because of differences with party members.
A long-simmering rift between Haider, the governor of Carinthia, and Susanne Riess-Passer, party chief and vice chancellor in the governing coalition, had sharpened last week over the issue of tax reforms designed to benefit low-income groups.
Haider, 52, was party leader from 1986 to 2000.
He has attracted strong criticism at home and abroad for his anti-immigrant stance and for remarks deemed anti-Semitic. In 1991, he publicly praised the Third Reich for its employment policy.
After massive floods in Austria last month, the government said it would no longer be able to pass the tax reform package in 2003, as originally planned.
Haider sharply criticized that decision, arguing that the government should fulfill its promise to voters to pass the laws on schedule.
