Liberal Forum

The Liberal Forum (german: Liberales Forum, LiF) was a centrist, liberal political party in Austria. The party was active from February 1993 to January 2014, when the party merged into NEOS – The New Austria.

A member of the Liberal International and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, it was founded as a classical liberal split from the FPÖ due to its right-wing populist stances and was placed on the libertarian/ post-materialist on a two-axis political spectrum, alongside The Greens – The Green Alternative, in a 2000 comparative analysis among Austrian political parties.

Founding

The Liberal Forum (LiF) was founded on 4 February 1993, when liberals in the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), including five members of the National Council of Austria, left the party. The five ''Nationalrat'' members were Heide Schmidt, Klara Motter, Friedhelm Frischenschlager, Hans Helmut Moser, and Thomas Barmüller. Heide Schmidt (who was third president of the ''Nationalrat'' until 1994) became the party's first chairperson.

The reason for the split within the FPÖ was growing disagreements between the liberal wing and the nationalist camp. Jörg Haider launched a petition-drive against foreign immigrants in Austria, the so-called Austria First Referendum (''Österreich Zuerst Volksbegehren''). This in turn was unacceptable to Heide Schmidt and her followers. The founders of the new party wanted to be a liberal party in the classical sense, which the FPÖ had ceased to be since the resignation of Norbert Steger and the rise of Haider.

LiF was the first party in the history of the Second Republic (since 1945) to achieve immediate seats in parliament without prior elections. After some initial confusion, the chairs of the house accepted the new formation as an official party, thereby granting access to public financial means of support. The FPÖ left the Liberal International and LiF took over its membership in its place. The party managed to gain 11 seats in the 1994 parliamentary elections, and with 5.51% of all votes cast 10 seats in the 1995 elections.

However, following the resignation of Schmidt as chairperson and the elections in 1999, the party's support plummeted and it failed to gain any seats. In the elections of 3 October 1999 the party obtained 3.65% of all votes and therefore failed to surmount the 4% mandatory threshold in order to enter parliament. In the elections of 2002 it obtained 1% of the vote and got no seats. As a consequence it also lost votes in state elections and is only represented on the communal level. In Vienna the party lost all seats on the district level in the elections of 2005.

LiF decided not to contest the 2009 European election, focussing on refounding and building up the party instead. The Young Liberals (JuLis), the LIF's student and youth organisation, contested the election independently instead.

LiF contested the 2013 legislative election in an electoral alliance with newly formed NEOS – The New Austria. On 25 January 2014, LiF merged into NEOS, which took the full name of NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum.

Ideology

According to its founding charter, the LiF propagated political liberalism and advocated a free market economy. Furthermore, the party wanted environmental protection and supported world peace.
The party supported:
* Promotion of privatisation
* Legalisation of cannabis
* Equalisation of homosexuals
* Liberalisation of shopping hours
* Increase of the voting age

Chairpersons since 1993

The chart below shows a timeline of the Liberal chairpersons and the Chancellors of Austria. The left bar shows all the chairpersons (''Bundessprecher'', abbreviated as "CP") of the Liberal party, and the right bar shows the corresponding make-up of the Austrian government at that time. The red (Social Democratic Party of Austria, SPÖ) and black (Austrian People's Party, ÖVP) colours correspond to which party led the federal government (''Bundesregierung'', abbreviated as "Govern."). The last names of the respective chancellors are shown, the Roman numeral stands for the cabinets.

ImageSize = width:420 height:300
PlotArea = width:370 height:250 left:50 bottom:50
Legend = columns:3 left:50 top:25 columnwidth:50

DateFormat = yyyy
Period = from:1993 till:2010
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:2 start:1993

# there is no automatic collision detection,
# so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap

Colors=
id:LIF value:yellow legend:LIF
id:SPÖ value:red legend:SPÖ
id:ÖVP value:gray(0.25) legend:ÖVP

Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of bar
Define $dy = -4 # adjust height

PlotData=
bar:CP color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S

from:1993 till:2000 shift:($dx,$dy) color:LIF text: Heide Schmidt
from:2000 till:2000 shift:($dx,$dy) color:LIF text:Christian Köck
from:2000 till:2001 shift:($dx,$dy) color:LIF text: Friedhelm Frischenschlager
from:2001 till:2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:LIF text:Alexander Zach
from:2008 till:2009 shift:($dx,$dy) color:LIF text: Werner Becher
from:2009 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:LIF text:Angelika Mlinar

bar:Govern. color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7

from:1993 till:1994 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text: Vranitzky III
from:1994 till:1996 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky IV
from:1996 till:1997 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky V
from:1997 till:2000 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text: Klima
from:2000 till:2003 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Schüssel I
from:2003 till:2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schüssel II
from:2007 till:2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text: Gusenbauer
from:2008 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text: Faymann

Parliamentary election results

National Council

European Parliament

Notes

On 7 June 2005, MEP Karin Resetarits left the party of Hans-Peter Martin, following several disagreements with him. She crossed the floor and has taken her seat with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Subsequently, In 2006 she also joined the Liberal Forum and represented them in the European Parliament.

In the 2006 elections, the Liberal Forum did not stand, but chairman Alexander Zach instead ran on the Social Democratic Party of Austria electoral list as an independent.

The Liberal Forum participated in the 2008 elections, its Electoral list led by the former chairperson Heide Schmidt. Shortly before the elections, there were allegations that Zach had lobbied for EADS, leading to his resignation in order to protect the party's integrity; Schmidt took over as interim leader.

See also

* Liberalism in Austria
* List of liberal parties
* Liberalism worldwide
* Contributions to liberal theory

References

External links

Liberal Forum
official site

{{Authority control

1993 establishments in Austria
2014 disestablishments in Austria
Centrist parties in Austria
Defunct political parties in Austria
Defunct liberal political parties in Austria
Freedom Party of Austria breakaway groups
Liberal parties in Austria
Political parties established in 1993
Political parties disestablished in 2014