VIENNA After six years of diplomatic isolation under KurtWaldheim, Austrians voted Sunday for a new president to usher theirneutral country into the European Community.
A runoff between the two front-runners in the four-way race wasscheduled for May 24.
Social Democrat Rudolf Streicher, 53, the former transportationminister and an orchestra conductor, finished first with 40.8 percentof the vote.
Trailing Streicher was Thomas Klestil, 59, a Foreign Ministryofficial and ambassador to the United States. He represents theconservative People's Party, which took 37.1 percent of the vote.
Waldheim, the 73-year-old former United Nations secretarygeneral, became a virtual pariah in the international community afterit was disclosed that he had concealed his wartime activities in theGerman army.
No evidence was found directly linking him to Nazi war crimes,but an international commission of historians found in 1988 that hemust at least have known about atrocities his unit committed in theBalkans.
Waldheim has denied wrongdoing.
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