"There are three major winners and one loser," in the wake of regional elections in Lower Austria and Carinthia on March 3, remarks the daily.
The winners are the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), which won the day in Carinthia with 37 per cent of the vote; the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), whose candidate Erwin Pröll won 50.9 per cent of the vote in Lower Austria; and Team Stronach led by billionaire Frank Stronach, which in its first ever election scored 9.8 per cent of the vote in Lower Austria and 11.3 per cent in Carinthia.
The major loser was the Freedom Party in Carinthia (FPK), which emerged as a local breakaway branch of the FPÖ founded by the deceased far-right leader Jörg Haider. In its traditional stomping ground of Carinthia, the party's share of the vote falling to just 27 per cent. “The era of Jörg Haider in Carinthia has definitively come to an end,” remarks Die Presse.
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