Thomas Klestil
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| Thomas Klestil | |
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10th President of Austria
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| In office 8 July 1992 – 6 July 2004 |
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| Preceded by | Kurt Waldheim |
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| Succeeded by | Heinz Fischer |
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| Born | 4 November 1932 Vienna |
| Died | 6 July 2004 Vienna |
| Political party | Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) |
Thomas Klestil (4 November 1932 – 6 July 2004) was an Austrian diplomat and politician. He was elected Federal President of Austria (Bundespräsident) in 1992 (on 56.9 % of the popular vote) and was re-elected to the position in 1998. His second—and final—term of office was due to end on 8 July 2004, but his death two days prior to his retirement from office cut his term short.
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[edit] Biography until 1992
Born in Vienna to a working class family—his father worked for the tramway—Klestil went to school in Landstraße where he made friends with Joe Zawinul. He studied at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration and received his doctorate in 1957. After entering the civil service he worked in Austria as well as abroad, for example for OECD. Fluent in English, Klestil was the Austrian Ambassador to the United Nations (1978–1982) and Ambassador to the United States (1982–1987) prior to his election as president.
[edit] Presidency
After being nominated by the conservative Austrian People's Party to run for Federal President, he succeeded Kurt Waldheim on 8 July 1992. However, in the course of his two terms of office, Klestil's alienation from his own party became increasingly obvious, so much so that there was open antagonism between Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel and Klestil when, in 2000, the latter had to swear in the newly formed coalition government with Jörg Haider's Austrian Freedom Party. Klestil, who during his election campaign had vowed to be an "active" president, repeatedly criticized the Austrian government and, in an interview with a Swiss daily given in 2003, stated that, theoretically speaking, it was in his power to dismiss the government any time he found it necessary to do so. As a matter of fact the Austrian Constitution does give far-reaching powers to the Federal President, but these had never been exercised by any of Klestil's predecessors.
Thomas Klestil, who had three grown-up children by his first marriage, divorced his wife of many years shortly after his successful election campaign of 1992 and subsequently, in 1998, married work colleague Margot Löffler, the woman he allegedly was already having an affair with at the time of his election. In 1996 he was taken seriously ill but recovered.
On 5 July 2004, three days before he was to leave office, he suffered a heart attack or heart failure, probably caused by his longtime lung problems and was left in critical condition. He died on 6 July at 23:33 local time at the AKH (Allgemeines Krankenhaus - General Hospital) in Vienna from multiple organ failure. On 9 July 2004 he was interred in the presidential crypt at Vienna's Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof).
[edit] Trivia
He was played by actor Guy Siner as a wildly exaggerated character in episode 4 of the sit-com That's My Bush!. In the episode US president George W. Bush (Timothy Bottoms) unintentionally blows up the Vienna State Opera with the new SDI-system, after his neighbour short-circuits its wires when helping Bush get free cable. Klestil swears revenge and with his assistants dig a tunnel under the Atlantic ocean, turning up outside the White House. They enter disguised as telephone repairmen and in the Oval Office hold Bush, Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld hostage. In the climatic showdown Rumsfeld takes out an unwitting Klestil and his assistants with the SDI-laser, turning the Austrians into smoking skeletons.
[edit] External links
| Presidents of Austria |  |
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| Karl Seitz • Michael Hainisch • Wilhelm Miklas • war period • Karl Renner • Theodor Körner • Adolf Schärf • Franz Jonas • Rudolf Kirchschläger • Kurt Waldheim • Thomas Klestil • Heinz Fischer |
