"The governor of Carinthia and leader of the BZOe (Alliance for Austria's Future) Joerg Haider died after a car accident early Saturday in Klagenfurt," the capital of his home state, the agency said.
Haider, 58, was at the wheel of his official car in the south of Klagenfurt when it veered off the road for unknown reasons after overtaking another vehicle.
He suffered serious head and chest injuries as his car flipped over several times and died shortly after the accident.
He had been expected to attend a family celebration Saturday marking his mother's 90th birthday.
"For us this is the end of the world," BZOe deputy leader Stefan Petzner told the Press.
Haider, Austria's most notorious post-war politician, headed the Alliance for Austria's Future since late August after turning the country's right Freedom Party (FPOe) into a political force in the 1980s and 1990s and prompting EU sanctions against Austria in 2000.
Perpetually tanned, athletic and stylish, he had been transformed from a young firebrand to an experienced politician in the past decade, helping his young BZOe party, only founded in 2005, to its best result in general elections last month.
Whit him goes some of our hope in europe concerning the ideology of death islamofascism.
