How austria's 'whizz kid' chancellor was brought down by scandal | thearticle

Austria doesn’t hit the British headlines often, but last week it made a rare appearance on the front pages. Not only was there the report of the death of the popular racing driver Niki

Lauda, but  also the enigma of ‘Ibiza Gate’, a scandal that threatened to rock the government of the country’s 32-year old ÖVP (conservative party) ‘whizz kid’ Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. For

more than a week Kurz appeared to be riding the storm, but on Monday 27th May he unexpectedly lost a vote of confidence in Parliament and was dismissed by the President Alexander Van der

Bellen. He is now preparing to fight new elections in the autumn. Austrian scandals that reach the foreign press are, without exception, those which focus on the extreme right in general,

and the FPÖ or Austrian Freedom Party in particular. Until last week the FPÖ were the minority element in Kurz’s coalition government, and as such viewed with suspicion and anger by

commentators in Austria and abroad. In my personal reminiscence, far-right scandals started with the FPÖ Defence Minister Friedhelm Frischenschlager travelling to greet the notorious SS

killer Walter Reder when he was released from prison in 1985, before proceeding to the meatier Nazi past of the President Waldheim the following year. After that for many years they dwelt

almost entirely on the activities of the FPÖ leader Jörg Haider, whose meteoric career came to a dramatic end when he died in the wreckage of his Phaeton car in October 2008. The new scandal

was no exception to the rule. Although Kurz took the rap, there is little doubt that the chief culprit in Ibiza Gate is his FPÖ former Vice-Chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache, a

self-styled ‘man of the people’, whom it might not be too fanciful to dub Austria’s answer to Nigel Farage. Strache possibly has even better popular credentials than the Briton: the child of

a broken home, Strache is a dental technician by profession who worked his way up from the bottom of the FPÖ to step into Haider’s shoes in 2006. He is often to be seen in his Austrian

‘Tracht’ – Lederhosen – brandishing a beer mug and inveighing against immigrants in a broad Viennese dialect. The latest crisis began with Strache’s friend, the aristocratic party treasurer

Johann Gudenus, whose father, John, caused yet another rumpus in 2006 when he made the astonishing claim that there had been no gas chambers in Germany during the Third Reich. Gudenus senior

died in 2016, and Johannes was anxious to liberate capital by selling off some family land near Krems. In March 2017, a potential buyer emerged in one ‘Aljona Makarova’, apparently the

Latvian niece of a Russian oligarch. Once Gudenus met her he was convinced that not only was the honeypot deep, but that some of the honey might also be channelled into the larders of the

FPÖ. Gudenus told Strache and a meeting was organised far from the prying eyes of press and people. Tickets were procured, flashy cars were hired and on 24 July 2017 the pair met the

selfsame Latvian lady together with ‘Julian’: a Munich-based Austrian private detective with a criminal record in a luxurious villa in Ibiza. Plied with plentiful alcohol and possibly other

incentives besides, a drunken Strache was filmed making plans to receive dodgy money and take control of the tabloid _ Kronenzeitung _ newspaper in wide-ranging, Viktor Orban-style attempts

to silence the press (journalists were dismissed as ‘whores’). Some choice stories were relayed about Kurz, the former Chancellor Kern and others. Another film, as yet unaired, is said to be

likely to bring down Strache’s marriage. Plentiful analysis of the film has pinpointed bugs and hidden cameras and at various times Aljona left the room to consult a boss and receive fresh

instructions. The Austrian politicians were apparently oblivious of any of this. Strache confessed to Kurz after the video was aired in the German press on 16 May. Strache seems to have

understood that his only course was to resign. He was replaced as FPÖ leader by the former presidential candidate Norbert Hofer. This started the ball rolling in the centre of Austria power

– the Ballhausplatz. The opposition decided the much vilified coalition of the ÖVP and the FPÖ had to go. According to the weekly news magazine _ Profil _ , at one point a priest joined the

throng chanting outside the Chancellor’s official residence, adding that that politicians should pray more and ‘net so vü saufn’ – not drink so much. So far the motive for making the film

and releasing it two years later is not clear. Blackmail springs to mind, but it is hard to see where either Strache or Gudenus would get the sum required to compensate the perpetrators for

what must have been an expensive sting. _ Profil _ reported that an operation of this sort could cost anything from €80,000 to €600,000. These are small sums for an oligarch, but why would

an oligarch be so interested in bringing down Strache or Kurz? It is unlikely that Putin would have much interest in dishing the FPÖ either, but some people have suggested that Israel might

be involved. But if the crooks were merely looking for a means to blight Strache’s career, end the coalition or remove Kurz why did they wait two years? They could have played their card in

December 2017 when the Coalition was formed. There is also a suggestion that those responsible for making the video were not paid by their puppet-masers and decided to splash the film for

the sheer hell of it. Austria-observers might be forgiven for scratching their heads in disbelief at this point, and asking themselves, ‘but I thought the scandal concerned Strache, not

Kurz, and yet the person who has suffered the most has been the Boy Chancellor?’ Why should Strache’s resignation lead to Kurz’s downfall? The answer may lie less in the scandal than the

feeling that Kurz had slighted both the FPÖ and the socialist SPÖ; the former by insisting that not only Strache, but also the Interior Minister Herbert Kickl and four others should resign

and the latter because Kurz had chosen to make a coalition with the FPÖ rather than them (as is generally the case). The shenanigans of blackmailers in Ibiza might merely be a welcome and

spiteful pretext therefore to get rid of the ‘immature’ Chancellor and try out a fresh coalition, without him.