Austria’s populist party shrugs off scandal in re-election bid

Vienna’s Prater funfair was an ideal backdrop for a pre-election gathering of Austria’s far-right populist Freedom Party (FPÖ).

As officials knocked back beers, all eyes – and smartphones – in the beer hall were drawn to two men hugging warmly.

One was FPÖ leader Norbert Hofer; the other was his larger-than-life predecessor, Heinz-Christian Strache. The two men were once close allies, but this was supposedly their first meeting since May. That was when a video emerged that turned Austrian politics on its head: Strache downing energy drinks in an Ibiza villa, promising state contracts for political donations during a secretly recorded meeting with a woman posing as a Russian oligarch’s niece.

The explosive video collapsed Austria’s coalition of FPÖ and the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) and triggered a snap election two years after the last.

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But when votes are counted on Sunday, many here expect Austria’s new coalition will comprise the same two parties as the old one. This despite Strache’s return to the headlines with claims that, despite a monthly expense allowance of €10,000, he logged thousands more of private spending as party expenses.

Investigators detained and interviewed a disgruntled former Strache bodyguard this week who allegedly documented his boss’s spendthrift approach to expenses.

Electrifying Vienna are rumours that the ex-bodyguard may have helped set up Strache in the Ibiza affair – and that he may even have evidence against the FPÖ, including large-scale party financing from dubious foreign sources.

On Thursday, as Austrian prosecutors announced an official investigation into Strache, the FPÖ presented itself as a victim of a campaign by unknown forces “to seriously damage, even destroy” the party.

Strache, facing possible fraud charges and a jail term, has also presented himself as an innocent target of “sleazy, made-up lies of a criminal network that has been working against me for years”.

Hofer may yet come to regret his embrace of Strache last week, three days before the expenses revelations. Now he is caught between two camps in his party, divided over whether to expel the man who flirted with neo-Nazism in his youth and led the party for 14 years.

And even without Strache, the FPÖ remains a radical political force with other divisive figures such as Herbert Kickl. He is the party’s chief ideologue and, in nearly two years as interior minister, is accused of undermining the separation of powers by ordering an unprecedented police raid on the domestic intelligence service.

Migration policy

That has, in turn, seen Austria’s intelligence partners cease co-operation with Vienna for fear of information ending up in the hands of FPÖ officials.

Hofer has said he is anxious to see a revival of the previous coalition.

“We extend a sincere hand to the conservatives to continue the work begun together to reform Austria,” said Hofer, who narrowly lost in his bid to become president in 2016.

But the ÖVP is wary of Kickl and the FPÖ’s political alliance with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. Then there are a steady stream of scandals even since Strache’s departure as leader. Like an FPÖ counsellor in Vienna who attended a conference organised by the far-right extremist Identiarian movement. Or a second party official who posted on Facebook birthday greetings to Hitler on his birthday, April 20th.

Hofer used a final television debate to drag attention back to his party’s vote-winning, hardline migration policy. His demand: that Austria build a “fence on the border, where it is necessary”.

“The greatest enemy of our culture,” he said, “is the Islamic culture.”

That these remarks went unchecked in the television debate, some commentators say, indicates how the populist party has radicalised Austrian politics.

“The FPÖ stir up resentment against an entire religious community and Mr Kurz and the ÖVP just look on,” said Natascha Strobl, a left-wing political analyst.

“We’ve had more revelations than ever before in this campaign but with no effect on the right-wing parties. It’s as if they’re immunised against scandal, and the left seems powerless to stop the rightward drift.”

After years riding a steady stream of scandal and revelations, final opinion polls put the FPÖ gaining on 21 per cent, just five points off their 2017 result.