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Austrian far-right kicks out scandal-hit ex-leader

Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) announced on Friday that it has ousted its former leader Heinz-Christian Strache, who was caught in a corruption scandal that saw the party ejected from government in May.

Published: 14 December 2019 10:29 CET
Austrian far-right kicks out scandal-hit ex-leader
Heinz-Christian Strache shortly after announcing a "total withdrawal form public life" in October. Photo: Joe Klamar / AFP
High-profile FPOe leaders called a press conference in which they said “the Strache chapter was being definitively closed” for the party, dogged for months by the fallout from the so-called “Ibiza-gate” scandal.    
 
In May sensational hidden-camera footage of Strache emerged which had been filmed on the Spanish island of Ibiza in 2017.
   
In it Strache appeared to offer public contracts to a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch, in return for campaign help.
   
Fifty-year-old Strache immediately stepped down as party leader but the scandal led to the collapse of the FPOe's coalition government with the centre-right People's Party (OeVP). 
 
 
Friday's expulsion is the latest episode in a spectacular fall from grace for Strache, who had led the party into government and became Vice-Chancellor after elections in autumn 2017 in which the party won 26 percent of the vote.
   
In that administration the FPOe gained control of several high-profile cabinet posts, including the coveted position of interior minister.
   
But the snap elections called after the Ibiza-gate scandal broke saw the party lose almost 10 points in vote share and the party remains stuck at around 15 percent in the polls.
   
That disastrous result, along with fresh embarrassing revelations about Strache's alleged abuse of expenses, led to increasing tension between Strache and the party's new leadership.
   
The latest bout of infighting mirrors splits in previous decades that similarly rocked the party, founded in the 1950s by former Nazis.
   
Reacting to the party's decision in a video posted on his Facebook page on Friday, Strache said he accepted that his party membership was “history”.
   
Even though he had announced in October that he would undertake “a total withdrawal from politics and public life”, he said on Friday that the support he had received in recent weeks “has led me to consider a political comeback in 2020”.
   
On Thursday three FPOe city councillors in Vienna seen as sympathetic to Strache left the party to set up their own grouping, the Alliance for Austria.
 
There has been persistent speculation that Strache wants to take part in next year's municipal elections in the Austrian capital and he himself referred on Friday to “big, exciting challenges waiting for me in the coming year”.

ANGELA MERKEL

Merkel’s conservative party moves to clean up after ‘mask affair’

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives are trying to end corruption allegations roiling their ranks over mask procurement, ordering MPs to declare all financial gains related to the pandemic days ahead of key regional elections.

Published: 10 March 2021 14:00 CET
Merkel's conservative party moves to clean up after 'mask affair'
Angela Merkel on Tuesday. Photo: DPA

A lawmaker from Merkel’s CDU party and another from its CSU Bavarian sister party have been accused of profiting directly or indirectly from mask contracts.

In a move to clean house, the conservative CDU-CSU alliance on Wednesday ordered all of its MPs to declare any financial benefits gained from the coronavirus pandemic by 6pm on Friday.

All members of the CDU-CSU parliamentary group will have to make “a declaration that no such benefits were obtained in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic”, says the letter addressed to the lawmakers, dated March 10th.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about Germany’s face mask scandal

This declaration must take into account any financial benefits “from the purchase or sale of medical products such as protective equipment, testing and vaccination supplies, from the provision of contacts, from the forwarding of offers or enquiries, or from the provision of support or advice to third parties”, the letter seen by AFP says.

In the event that such a declaration cannot be made, MPs are urged to report directly to two senior party members.

CSU lawmaker Georg Nüsslein was last month placed under investigation for corruption following accusations that he accepted around €600,000 ($715,000) to lobby for a mask supplier.

A similar controversy has embroiled CDU lawmaker Nikolas Löbel, whose company pocketed 250,000 euros in commissions for acting as an intermediary in mask contracts.

Löbel has resigned from his MP post and Nüsslein has said he will leave after September’s elections, with the deals drawing scathing criticism across the political spectrum.

Amid the fallout from the scandal dubbed the “mask affair” by German media, the conservatives said they had “a responsibility to present and clarify such matters in a completely transparent manner”.

The scandal has led to a drop in the CDU’s popularity ratings just days ahead of two key regional elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.

The state elections will be a litmus test ahead of Germany’s general election on September 26th – the first in over 15 years not to feature outgoing chancellor Merkel.

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