Interview with “Falter” boss: Why Kurz is still in office

Despite raids and allegations of corruption, Austria’s Chancellor Kurz refuses to resign. “Falter” boss Klenk thinks this is partly due to the personality cult in the ÖVP and partly to the special role of the media in the country’s political circus.

tagesschau.de: Mr Klenk, the allegations against Sebastian Kurz and those around him are overwhelming. Why is he still in office?

Florian Klenk: He tries to let the allegations slide on his popularity. He insists on the presumption of innocence. He can do that too, because it is of course up to the courts to decide on guilt and innocence. But when he says that when he was foreign minister he did not know what his confidants were doing behind his back, that in some cases he “hardly knew” the people involved, then that is hardly credible.

The facts are that one of his closest collaborators, Thomas Schmid, as Secretary General in the Ministry of Finance, made sure that Kurz got off to a good start in the media – and that with massive use of tax revenues, as we now know.

tagesschau.de: How do you know that for sure? Why are the files of the public prosecutor’s office in the big media on the table, so to speak?

Klenk: This is due to a peculiarity of the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure, which differs from Germany: Here, accused and their lawyers are usually given comprehensive access to files during the preliminary investigation – and above all, the media are allowed to quote from these files with impunity. Ultimately, it is often the case that the lawyers of the accused themselves have an interest in passing on complete files because they fear that the content will otherwise only be disseminated selectively by others at the expense of their clients.

The current situation is that the search warrant was initially made public to the extent of around 100 pages, but the public prosecutor’s office has now expanded its access to around 500 pages. Interestingly, the only party that wanted to change this type of file inspection last, including with reference to Germany, was the ÖVP.

“Conversion of the ÖVP to a short election club”

tagesschau.de: Why does Kurz have such power in his party despite all the scandals?

Klenk: Because he made the ÖVP his party. I do not want to compare him with Donald Trump, but the conversion of the ÖVP from a bourgeois-conservative party to a Sebastian Kurz electoral association has certain parallels. Kurz has secured access to the party, has staffed the committees according to his taste, he has the lists of candidates compiled. His popularity far outshines that of the party.

You can also see this in the e-mails that we can now read: This is how his confidante Thomas Schmid describes himself as a Praetorian, i.e. the Chancellor’s Roman bodyguard. His press spokesman Johannes Frischmann says he is like the orchestra leader on the Titanic and will play for Kurz until it goes down. The oaths of loyalty made by these young men, who owe their political careers to Kurz, have something sectarian about them.

As a result, it is no longer the honorable party of Wolfgang Schüssel, which has respect for the institutions. Kurz and his confidants are constantly attacking all democratic supervisory bodies: the media are either made compliant with advertisements – or their advertising budget is cut if they report critically. Those who do not make themselves dependent on it are insulted. The parliamentary committees of inquiry and control bodies are denigrated as a kind of dumb peasant theater. And the investigating Vienna Economic and Corruption Public Prosecutor’s Office (WKStA) describe party people as a “left cell”, which would be unthinkable in Germany.

“The public pays for its own manipulation”

tagesschau.de: From a Germany perspective, the financial influence that the government exerts directly on the media with the help of advertising budgets also appears unthinkable. Can you explain that?

Klenk: The Austrian media landscape is completely different from the German one in this respect. There never were strong publishers and their houses like Gerd Bucerius, Rudolf Augstein or Axel Springer. Instead, there is a very influential boulevard, which has also been living off advertising budgets from politics for decades. This is not new and was also the case under conservative and social democratic governments. Jörg Haider was also a master at securing this influence.

What is new, however, is the direct buyability and the openness with which it is exchanged: Not only that you hold out an advertising carrot to the media with benevolent reporting, so to speak, but that you also pull out the stick and cut entire budgets if there is critical reporting.

In addition, bogus surveys in favor of Kurz and the ÖVP were placed on the boulevard and at the same time taxpayers were made to pay for them by accounting for these “studies” through the Ministry of Finance. That is, the public has paid for its own manipulation. Basically, that’s exactly what HC Strache only dreamed of in the Ibiza video. Sebastian Kurz and the ÖVP did it.

“The media adulterated their journalism”

tagesschau.de: What are the consequences?

Klenk: I hope that this will be a turning point in media financing in Austria. I compare that to the wine scandal of the 1980s. It was then discovered that the winemakers pounded the wine with glycol to make it sweeter and more aromatic. This led to a massive loss of confidence and a huge sales crisis, but also to a much more ecological and high-quality wine industry as a result. And now it comes out that the big media in Austria are messing up their journalism, so to speak, by distributing content at the request and payment of the politicians. Hopefully this will lead to a similar change, but one in which a critical public is crucial.

tagesschau.de: And what is the political next step in concrete terms?

Klenk: Nobody knows. In the background, the Greens are sounding out a majority without Sebastian Kurz, but all options have big problems: A minority cabinet would have to be supported by the FPÖ, i.e. by Herbert Kickl, the largest critic of Corona measures and anti-vaccination in the country. However, due to the Ibiza affair, he still has an account with Kurz open, because he expressed his distrust at the time, although Kickl was never criminally investigated.

A majority with the ÖVP, but without Kurz, seems unlikely; a so-called expert government would lack political legitimacy. And with new elections, all parties have the problem that they do not know whether the current investigations are really damaging Kurz for the voters. That was the case with Strache, but with Kurz it is much more unclear.

The interview was conducted by Andrej Reisin, tagesschau.de