After being nominated by the conservative Austrian People's Party to run for Federal President, he succeeded Kurt Waldheim on 8 July 1992. However, in the course of his two terms of office, Klestil's alienation from his own party became increasingly obvious, so much so that there was open antagonism between Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel and Klestil when, in 2000, the latter had to swear in the newly formed coalition government with Jörg Haider's Austrian Freedom Party. Klestil, who during his election campaign had vowed to be an "active" president, repeatedly criticized the Austrian government and, in an interview with a Swissdaily given in 2003, stated that, theoretically speaking, it was in his power to dismiss the government any time he found it necessary to do so. As a matter of fact the Austrian Constitution does give far-reaching powers to the Federal President, but these had never been exercised by any of Klestil's predecessors.
Klestil gave his support to the development of Kiryat Mattersdorf, a HarediJewish neighborhood in northern Jerusalem founded by the MattersdorferRav, Rabbi Shmuel Ehrenfeld, in 1959 in memory of the Siebengemeinden of Burgenland that were destroyed in the Holocaust, Mattersdorf being one of them. Ehrenfeld's son, Rabbi Akiva Ehrenfeld, who served as president of the neighborhood, established close ties with the Austrian government to obtain funding for several institutions, including a kindergarten and the Neveh Simcha nursing home. Following Klestil's official state visit to Israel in 1994, which included a side tour of Kiryat Mattersdorf, Klestil hosted Ehrenfeld at an official reception at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna on 24 January 1995.
Personal
On 8 June 1967 she married Thomas Klestil had known Edith Wielander since they were both 17. The couple married in June 1967 and had three grown children together by the time of his election as president in 1992. The couple separated in 1994, when Klestil made public that he had a love affair with the much younger diplomat Margot Löffler. The couple divorced in September 1998, and Klestil married Löffler three months later. When Klestil died in 2004, Edith attended the funeral service. Klestil suffered from health issues related to his lungs, including a serious illness in 1996.
Death and burial
On 5 July 2004, three days before he was to leave office, he suffered a heart attack or heart failure, probably caused by his long-term lung problems, and was left in critical condition. He died on 6 July at 23:33 local time at the AKH in Vienna from multiple organ failure. On 10 July 2004, the funeral service was held in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, and he was interred in the presidential crypt at Vienna's Central Cemetery. Among the notable dignitaries who attended his funeral were Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Austrian President and UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, and the Austrian-born Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Klestil was the fifth President of Austria to die in office since 1950.
