Wolfgang Schuessel: Steely strategist

Wolfgang Schuessel has dropped the bow-tie image

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel is being hailed as a master tactician after an election win that took observers by surprise and left his party only just short of an absolute majority.

I am happy with what and who I am

Wolfgang Schuessel

It is the first time his People's Party has come top in a general election since 1966, and follows a poor showing in the 1999 election when it was beaten into third place by the far-right Freedom Party.

In early 2000, Mr Schuessel was widely condemned for agreeing to go into government with the anti-immigrant party founded by Joerg Haider - a decision that brought diplomatic sanctions down on Austria from the rest of the EU.

But his conviction that the party would be tamed by the experience of government was borne out - the tensions this created caused the party to split and gave Mr Schuessel the cue to call to snap elections.

Little prince

The vote allowed the People's Party to increase its share of the vote by 17%, entirely at the expense of the Freedom Party.

Schuessel credo

EU and Nato membership

Economic liberalisation

State aid for families

Increased military spending

During the election campaign Mr Schuessel again showed a sure touch, poaching some of the party's policies, and even its most popular cabinet member, Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, who ran with Mr Schuessel as an independent.

"The catastrophic situation of [the Freedom Party] and the growing despair of the governor of Carinthia province [Joerg Haider] is no accident," wrote columnist Eric Frey in Der Standard.

He added that it was the "result of a calculated political strategy which Wolfgang Schuessel carried out".

The 57-year-old career politician has been nicknamed "the little prince" - a reference to his wide-ranging musical, sporting, and intellectual talents - and the "chancellor who keeps mum", because of his failure to openly condemn Joerg Haider for visiting Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Popularity

"I am happy with what and who I am," he says on his website.

The People's Party ran campaign advertisements trading on Mr Schuessel's personal popularity, with the slogan "Who if not him?"

Polls showed that 43% of voters - the same number that ultimately voted for the People's Party - would have voted for him in a direct election for the chancellorship, compared to 25% for Alfred Gusenbauer, the head of Austria's other main party, the Social Democratic Party.

Mr Schuessel studied law and economics at university, becoming deputy leader of the People's Party in 1987, and later holding posts as economics minister, vice-chancellor and foreign minister.

He campaigned for Austria's entry into the EU - which came about during his tenure as foreign minister - and now favours its entry into Nato.

A practising Roman Catholic, he is married to a psychotherapist, and has two children.