Sunday, May 19, 2019

Government Crisis in Austria

This has been an unusually exciting weekend in Austrian politics!

Friday at 6:00pm Austrian time, the German Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel published excerpts from a video secretly shot in 2016 July 2017 showing Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the leader of his party in the Austrian Parliament, Johann Gudenus, proposing some very dubious business to a woman they thought was the niece of a Russian oligarch.

By midday Saturday, Strache had resigned as Vice Chancellor and Gudenus from his post. The FPÖ since December 2017 has been the junior partner in the national government with Chancellor Sebastian Kurz' conservative, Christian Democratic Peoples' Party (ÖVP). At 7:45 Saturday evening, Kurz' gave a public statement declaring the end of his coalition and calling for new elections, which will probably be held in September. Unttl then, the current government will continue to serve.

Afterward, the President (head of state) Alexander Van der Bellen appeared publicly and endorsed the concept of new election and emphasized the shameful nature of what Strache and Gudenus were saying on the video. Strache in his resignation statement whined that the trap was staged by an intelligence service. Typical for the hard right in Europe and America, he's always the victim being persecuted by "the left". But he didn't dispute the video itself as falsified.

Between Strache's resignation and Kurz' speech, a large crowd gathered in the Ballhausplatz in Vienna in front of the Chancellor's building. The numbers from the press reports and video seem to have been in the tens of thousands. They were there peacefully protesting and many chanting "Neu-Wahl-En", i.e., new elections.

Former California Governor Jerry Brown talked about "democratic moments," inflection points which mobilize people to engage in politics and make people newly appreciative of "people's power." I would describe what we saw this weekend as such a moment. It was based on a press revelation of a film made by unknown and probably very shady sources. But after a year and a half when FPÖ provocations and anti-democratic efforts of various kinds to push Austria in the direction of an authoritarian, Hungary-style "illiberal democracy," we had a rapid reshuffling of the political stage in a democratic direction.

To make democratic moments more than moments, of course, requires a lot of effort by responsible politicians and activists. Stay tuned.

Here are several reports on the weekend's events.

Walter Mayr, Kontrolle entglitten: Österreichs Regierungskrise Spiegel Online 18.05.2019

Caught in the Trap Süddeeutsche Zeitung; accessed 19.05.2019

Caught in the Trap Süddeeutsche Zeitung; accessed 19.05.2019

Die wichtigsten Fakten zum Strache-Video Süddeeutsche Zeitung 17.05.2019 The Strache Recordings - The whole Story Spiegel International 05/17/2019

Nina Horaczek, Blaue Liebesgrüße nach Moskau Falter 17.05.2019

Boris Groendahl, Austria’s Kurz Seeks to Rule Alone After Nationalists Toppled Bloomberg News 05/18/2019

Jon Henley and Philip Oltermann, Austria to move fast to hold elections after coalition collapses Guardian 18.05.2019

Das türkis-blaue Ende in Zitaten: "Falle, Falle, eine eingefädelte Falle" Standard 19.05.2019

Christoph Kotanko, Analyse: Warum es Sebastian Kurz reicht Oberösterreichische Nachrichten 18.05.2019

Walter Hämmerle, Die FPÖ nach Strache Wiener Zeitung 19.05.2019

SPÖ fordert Experten für Übergangsphase in Ministerien Vorarlberger Nachrichten 19.05.2019: "Die SPÖ fordert, dass in der Übergangsphase bis zu einer neuen Regierung die drei Ministerien Justiz, Verteidigung und Inneres schnellstmöglich mit unabhängigen Experten besetzt werden."

ORF has a 45 minute documentary in German on the history of the FPÖ and their predecessor movements available on their website through next Friday, Im Brennpunkt: Das Dritte Lager 18.05.2019
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