Schwarzenegger joins Austrian polls campaignDate: 24.11.2002
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team Austria
Musclebound filmstar Arnold Schwarzenegger joined Austria's election campaign at the 11th hour on Saturday, backing conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel the day before a knife-edge general election.
The "Terminator" movie star appeared in an advertisement in the most popular daily Krone on Saturday and is expected to make other appearances, according to officials from Schuessel's People's Party (OeVP), who declined to give details.
Austrian-born Schwarzenegger, a former professional bodybuilder known locally as the "Styrian oak" after the eastern province in which he grew up, is also an activist for the Republican party in the United States.
His last-minute contribution comes just one day before Austria votes in an election that opinion polls say could go either way.
The last Market survey before the election showed the OeVP, with 38 percent support, slipping behind its Social Democrat rival, which had 39 percent. The struggling far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) tallied 11 percent, just ahead of the Greens with nine percent.
In the last election in October 1999, the Social Democrats won 33 percent of the vote, the OeVP and Freedom Party 27 percent each, and the Greens seven percent.
The OeVP and FPOe formed a government coalition in February 2000.
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