Austria’s crisis is a lesson for Europe: far-right parties are unfit to govern

It is hard to shock the population of a country where racism and corruption have become so normalised that they are considered business as usual. Yet, the latest revelations of Austria’s “Ibiza scandal” are on an entirely new scale, setting in motion a complete meltdown of Austria’s coalition government.

Leaked video recordings show the now-resigned vice chancellor HC Strache and parliamentary whip Johann Gudenus offer Austrian contracts and assets, including the country’s most widely read media outlet, Kronen Zeitung, to Russian oligarchs in return for campaign support. It marks the climax in a series of political scandals of Austria’s far-right Freedom party (FPÖ). Just the past year saw the far-right deputy mayor of Braunau am Inn (Hitler’s birthplace) publish a poem comparing migrants to rats, high-ranking FPÖ politicians cultivate connections with neo-Nazi fraternities and the extreme-right identitarian movement, and the FPÖ-led interior ministry attempt to bring the national intelligence agency (BVT) under its control.

The Austrian far right’s quest to take over influential media outlets, even if that involves selling them to Russian investors, reflects a form of political campaigning that knows few legal and even fewer moral boundaries. Strache’s role model is Hungary, where the far-right government under Viktor Orbán is said to control 75% to 80% of the media market. The ex-vice chancellor is recorded saying: “We want to build a media landscape that is similar to Orbán’s.”

This focus on the information war is a wider trend that we observe at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). In our project to monitor illegal, manipulative and distortive campaigns in the runup to the European parliament elections, we found that the battle against trustworthy media sources has been at the core of the tactics adopted by far-right populist front runners and their grassroots campaign networks across Europe. The identitarians printed 10,000 flyers for distribution to “bring the free media to the people before the European elections”. And just last week, the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) held its “free media conference”, which included guest speakers such as the far-right social media influencer and former Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos.

The Ibiza scandal itself is alarming enough, but its protagonists’ reactions are even more worrying. In a mix of framing themselves as victims and kick-starting smear campaigns against their political enemies, the FPÖ has launched efforts to twist the narrative for its campaigns in the runup to this weekend’s European parliament elections, as well as the Austrian snap elections scheduled for autumn 2019.

New campaign posters of the FPÖ emerged in the streets of Vienna and on social media this week. They carry the slogan #JetztErstRecht (“now more than ever”) and are designed to redirect the anger of voters towards political scapegoats and funnel it into anti-establishment resentment.

Both the FPÖ protagonists featured in the Ibiza video have resorted to fingerpointing at other political parties instead of acknowledging their own mistakes. Gudenus even claimed he “probably received knock-out drops”, which raises the question of how he could still stand and speak in the video.

The Austrian far right is notoriously good at painting itself as the victim of everything – including atrocities it commits itself. As the Austro-British journalist Hella Pick, who fled to the UK after Germany’s annexation of Austria, describes in her book Guilty Victims, Austrian political actors succeeded in presenting the country as a victim rather than a collaborator in the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, some politicians seized the opportunity of leaving a personal legacy and satisfying their fanbase. In the last minute before vacating his office, the sacked interior minister Herbert Kickl issued an order to reduce the hourly wage of asylum seekers to €1.50 (£1.30).

Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, who was in a coalition government with the Freedom party and has increasingly pandered to far-right audiences since taking office in December 2017, used his first press conference after the scandal to start his campaign for re-election.

As our president, Alexander Van der Bellen, cautioned in Tuesday evening’s speech, “now is not the time for political campaigning”. Instead of strategising about making personal or party gains, politicians are advised to think about what is best for the country in this difficult moment.

The Ibiza scandal and its political aftermath is the latest example of the hypocrisy behind the promise at the heart of far-right populists’ campaigns – that they represent the voice of the people. With their leaders encouraging Russian interference and contemplating selling their own country’s independent media – this claim appears all but incredible.

Across Europe, we are facing a fundamental democratic crisis. From east to west Europe, from the Scandinavian to the Mediterranean countries, people’s trust in their political representatives, institutions and processes is dwindling. If politicians – regardless of their political party or ideological direction – continue to play the victim card and fail to take responsibility for their own wrongdoings, the costs might be higher than just losing an election. What is at stake is the future of popular trust in our democratic system.