Heide Schmidt is an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n politician.

A lawyer and formerly a prominent member of Jörg Haider

Jörg Haider

Jörg Haider was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Austrian Freedom Party and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of Austria , a breakaway party from the FPÖ.Haider was controversial within Austria and abroad for comments...

's Austrian Freedom Party

Freedom Party of Austria

The Freedom Party of Austria is a political party in Austria. Ideologically, the party is a direct descendant of the German national liberal camp, which dates back to the 1848 revolutions. The FPÖ itself was founded in 1956 as the successor to the short-lived Federation of Independents , which had...

 (FPÖ), in 1993 Schmidt was one of a group of politicians who, because of Haider's increasingly right-wing verbal politics, seceded from the FPÖ and founded the Liberal Forum

Liberal Forum

The Liberal Forum is a small classical liberal party in Austria. The party is currently led by Angelika Mlinar, and is a member of the Liberal International and the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.-Founding:...

.

From 1990 until 1994 Schmidt was Third President of the National Council of Austria

National Council of Austria

The National Council is one of the two houses of the Austrian parliament. According to the constitution, the National Council and the complementary Federal Council are peers...

. Also, she twice ran for Austrian Presidency both in 1992 when she was nominated by the FPÖ and in 1998 by the Liberal Forum.

Schmidt ran the non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

, Institut für eine offene Gesellschaft (Institute for an Open Society) from 2000–2009.

In 2008, Schmidt staged a brief comeback as leading candidate for the Liberal Forum. Following the party's disastrous showing and failure to re-enter parliament, Schmidt announced her final retirement from politics.

External links

• http://www.ioge.at/ (Institut für eine offene Gesellschaft)