Fred Sinowatz

Fred Sinowatz
Minister of Education and the Arts
In office 4 November 1971 – 24 May 1983
Chancellor	Bruno Kreisky
Preceded by	Leopold Gratz
Succeeded by	Helmut Zilk
Member of the National Council
In office 18 June 1986 – 22 September 1988
Constituency	Burgenland–Lower Austria–Vienna
In office 4 November 1971 – 31 May 1983
Constituency	1 – Burgenland
Personal details
Born	(1929-02-05)5 February 1929 Neufeld an der Leitha, Burgenland, Austria
Died	11 August 2008(2008-08-11) (aged 79) Vienna, Austria
Political party	Social Democratic Party
Signature

Alfred Sinowatz (5 February 1929 – 11 August 2008) was an Austrian historian and politician of the

After a three-years term in office, Sinowatz resigned as Chancellor after Kurt Waldheim's victory in the 1986 presidential election.

Life and career

Born in

Sinowatz became an elected member of the municipal assembly (Gemeinderat) of his hometown Neufeld in 1957 and served as a regional SPÖ party secretary from 1961. Also in 1961 he became MP of the Burgenland state diet (Landtag), from 1964 to 1966 as speaker of the parliament. In 1966 he joined the provincial government as Minister of Education.

Upon the 1971 legislative election, Sinowatz became a member of the Austrian National Council parliament. On 4 November 1971, he took office as Minister of Education and Arts in the second cabinet of Chancellor Bruno Kreisky. During the ensuing twelve years of his office, Sinowatz substantially reformed the system of education in Austria to allow and increase social mobility. In 1982 he promoted the recognition of Buddhism in Austria as an official religious community.

In 1981, after Bruno Kreisky's aspiring "crown prince", Finance Minister Hannes Androsch was removed from his position, Sinowatz also became Vice-Chancellor.

Chancellorship

The SPÖ had held an absolute majority in the National Council since 1970. However, at the

In late 1984, his red-blue coalition had to face the severe internal crisis of the Occupation of the Hainburger Au by thousands of people protesting against the building of a power station in the Danube floodplain, with violent clashes between police and demonstrators. Sinowatz managed to calm both sides by calling a halt to the woodland clearing and announcing a "Christmas Peace" on 22 December 1984, following considerable pressure from the public.

In spite of this, his period of office generally is not considered to have been successful. It was overshadowed by the

During a meeting of the steering committee of the Burgenland SPÖ before the 1986 presidential election, according to a later rendering by board member Ottilie Matysek, Chancellor Sinowatz insinuated that one would have to point out to the Austrians that the candidate of the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), the former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, had a "brown" (i.e. Nazi) past. By an indiscretion, this remark was passed on to the weekly magazine profil, which started to investigate the matter and triggered the Waldheim debate.

During the presidential campaign, Sinowatz strongly opposed Waldheim. When Waldheim gave assurances that he had not been a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA) Equestrian Corps, but had only joined its members in riding occasionally, Sinowatz countered: "So we note that Kurt Waldheim never was a member of the SA, but only his horse."

After Waldheim's election in the second round, Sinowatz resigned and passed on his post as chancellor to Finance Minister Franz Vranitzky, who also succeeded him as SPÖ chairman in 1988. At the same time, Sinowatz also resigned as an MP of the Austrian National Council.

Later years

Sinowatz sued the profil journalist

• Politics of Austria

Note

• This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia, as of 21 January 2005.