Jörg Haider, former FPÖ leader and still Landeshauptmann of Carinthia, called for changes in government policy to reinvigorate the party's popularity, especially a tax reform.
The following day, Riess-Passer, Minister of Finance Karl-Heinz Grasser (who was later reappointed in this position by the ÖVP) and the chairman of the FPÖ parliamentary club, Peter Westenthaler, announced their resignation, as did some other relatively pragmatic functionaries.
Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel then renounced the coalition pact, which led to early elections being called, where the FPÖ lost approximately two thirds of its voters of 1999 and fell from 26.9% of the public vote to 10.0%.
As the FPÖ continued to lose even more dramatically in subsequent local and also the 2004 European elections, tensions did not subside.
Since then the FPÖ grew again, receiving 10.5% in the 2008 Lower Austria "Landtag" (provincial) election, more than doubling its 2003 result (4.5%).