VIENNA -- National elections Sunday could determine whether right-wing populist Joerg Haider moves closer to power -- and isolates Austria perhaps more acutely than did Kurt Waldheim's presidency.


Haider, 45, is a folksy politician whose fondness for tough talk and anti-foreigner politics prompts his foes to portray him as a virtual neo-Nazi. He paints himself as Austria's version of U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and even kicked off the campaign with a "Contract with Austria."


No one expects his Freedom Party to win a majority in Sunday's parliamentary election; in fact, the party is expected to come in third behind the Social Democrats and the People's Party.


But Haider might be able to put together a coalition with the power-hungry People's Party, which governed with the Social Democrats for nine years until the coalition collapsed in October over the 1996 budget.


Because of Haider's notoriety abroad, fed by ambivalent statements about Nazi Germany, such a coalition could isolate Austria internationally even more than the 1986-1992 presidency of Waldheim. His lies about his World War II service in Adolf Hitler's army led most foreign leaders to shun the country.


"Austria's position in the European Union would be seriously weakened" with Haider in government, said Anton Pelinka, a leading political scientist. Diplomats concur.


At home, the trade unions, meek during 25 years of government led by the Social Democrats, would likely turn militant. Immigrant workers and their supporters would resist his desire to close Austria's borders to new immigrants.


Haider himself is ambivalent about whether he wants power, or prefers to stay in opposition and wait for his long-announced target date of 1998 to try to become chancellor.


Commentators now predict that Austrians' aversion to radical change and fear of left-right polarization might even lead to a renewed coalition between the Social Democrats and the People's Party.


Under Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, the Social Democrats have made fear of Haider a main campaign theme. While promising to reform the generous welfare system and rein in state spending, they portray themselves as the champions of the underprivileged.


The People's Party wants more spending cuts to slash a staggering 120 billion schilling ($12 billion) budget deficit and champions business.


Haider has taken up his familiar campaign cries against corruption and mismanagement in the cozy two-party system that evolved after World War II.


Since becoming head of the Freedom Party in 1986, Haider has used accessible, often abrasive oratory to champion the man-on-the-street. He tends to blame an influx of foreign workers for the insecurities felt by the blue-collar sector. Haider's xenophobia, along with his rightist rhetoric, prompts opponents to see him as a neo-Nazi.


Like some other politicians, he wants up to 80,000 Bosnian refugees in Austria to return home as peace gains ground. But he stands alone in implying that the refugees are ne'er-do-wells, saying they must "make a contribution toward reconstruction of their homeland and not have the young men from NATO do the work for them."