A few months before the election in Vienna
FPÖ leader Kickl under suspicion of corruption
Austrians will elect a new parliament in the fall. While the right-wing FPÖ is leading in the polls, party leader Kickl is getting in the way of corruption investigations. The allegations of infidelity are also directed against the former Vice-Chancellor Strache.
In Austria, the public prosecutor's office is investigating the head of the right-wing populist FPÖ, Herbert Kickl, and other top politicians in the party on suspicion of corruption. As the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office (WKStA) in Vienna explained, the FPÖ politicians are accused of having placed advertisements using state funds in a tabloid newspaper in return for positive reporting at the time of their joint government with the conservative ÖVP.
The offenses are said to have occurred between January 2018 and May 2019, when Kickl was Interior Minister under ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. According to the WKStA, the investigation was initiated in mid-April. In addition to Kickl, the accused also include the former FPÖ transport minister and presidential candidate Norbert Hofer and ex-party leader and vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache.
The FPÖ told the APA news agency that it was “calm about the investigation” and was “100 percent convinced that it will be closed.” The only goal of the procedure is to harm the FPÖ. The right-wing populists are ahead in the polls a few months before the parliamentary elections in Austria.
Investigations in the wake of the Ibiza affair
Austrian politics has been rocked by corruption scandals for years. In 2019, a secretly filmed video triggered the so-called Ibiza affair: The recordings showed how the then Vice Chancellor and FPÖ leader Strache, before the 2017 parliamentary election, promised state contracts to a supposed Russian oligarch's niece in return for electoral help.
The publication of the video led to investigations against Austrian politicians and brought down Strache and the first Kurz government, who was then re-elected chancellor of a new coalition. In October 2021, Kurz resigned due to various corruption allegations; the decisive factor was ultimately an affair about falsified surveys. In February of this year, Kurz was sentenced in the first instance to eight months in prison on probation for making false statements in a criminal trial.
