Two total dickheads discussing the taking of Russian money to advance their political aims in Austria in 2017 on video
This is one of the really sweet stories where the greed, stupidity and corruption prevalent in many of the right wing populist parties in Europe come together to create the perfect storm. It’s almost too good to believe but it is true nonetheless.
Austria has been governed by a coalition of the conservative ÖVP and the right wing populist FPÖ parties since December 2017 — the vice chancellor is the FPÖ party chief Heinz-Christian Strache and the head of the caucus in parliament is Johann Gudenus. These two bozos got themselves set up in the summer of 2017 taking a meeting with the alleged niece of a Russian oligarch who offered financial assistance in return for political favors. The meeting took place on the party island of Ibiza and was recorded on video — for 6 hours! The people responsible for this trap (they are as of now unknown) leaked the video to two very reputable German news outlets and it got published yesterday. Read the summary here: www.spiegel.de/…
Money quote:
The recordings are politically explosive. They reveal highly questionable views of Austrian politicians currently in office. They show that these politicians were willing to boost the FPÖ's election results with the help of Russian money. The promises made that evening and the practices they revealed could potentially be criminal for someone in political office.
Plans they discussed:
- The takeover of Austria’s biggest newspaper by Russian interests and turning the paper into a propaganda machine for the populist party
- The privatization of parts of the public broadcasting company (the most watched and consumed TV and radio stations) with the same goal
- Steering all government road construction contracts to a firm to be created by the Russian interests
The list goes on and on and resembles the playbook of right wing populist takeovers we have seen over several countries mainly in eastern Europe like Hungary and Poland. If it weren’t that serious this takedown would be really funny — the good German word “Schadenfreude” comes to mind. But in reality this is really scary: Right wing populists apparently find it perfectly normal to be approached by wealthy Russians in order to subvert the most basic democratic norms in their own countries with the explicit goal of taking over political power. These people need to be stopped, be it in Austria, France, Germany, the UK or the Netherlands.
Update from tonight:
Strache and Gudenius have resigned all party and government posts.
The Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz has denounced his coalition partner FPÖ as irredeemably corrupt and called for new elections as soon as possible. That is at least a halfway decent step on his part. He should never have let these people into government in the first place.
Yet another update:
Many commentators have pointed out that I didn’t mention the USA when listing countries where similar things happen and need to be stopped — and they are of course absolutely right! The only excuse I have is that I am currently heavily involved in fighting the European elections coming up next week (I’m canvassing for the Green Party in Germany) and so I just completely forgot. Sorry! But to me that’s just another bit of proof of how effective those Russian efforts in sowing disinformation and discord really are. They can get totally in our heads and that’s yet another reason to fight them and their allies in the USA and everywhere else with all we have. Thanks again for pointing this out!
And wow! Thanks for the rec list!
And here’s more: When I posted the diary, I hadn’t seen anything in the US media on the story yet. But now the NYT has posted a lead story. Read it here:
The scandal comes at an important political moment in the European Union. Across the Continent, far-right, populist leaders are campaigning hard before this coming week’s elections for the European Parliament and seem poised to increase their share in the chamber.
Many of Europe’s populists share the intentions of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to widen political divisions and weaken Western institutions. Those tactics have involved interfering in democratic campaigns including the United States 2016 elections. And a Russian woman, Maria Butina, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in April after admitting that she had been part of that effort.
