RTSat, 18 May 2019 09:44 UTC
© REUTERS/Leonhard FoegerAustrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache
Austria's ruling coalition party is under fire after a leaked video showed the vice chancellor discussing alleged quid pro quo arrangements with a "Russian oligarch niece" ... and some pundits quickly had their Russiagate meltdowns.
The scandal rocked the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) on Friday after two German publications,
Spiegel and
Suddeutscher Zeitung, released exposes of a video leaked to them by an unnamed party.
The video shows a July 2017 meeting at an Ibiza villa, where Heinz-Christian Strache, the party leader and vice chancellor of Austria, and Johann Gudenus, Strache's protégé and senior figure in the FPO, discuss alleged shady deals with an unidentified woman.The conversations reportedly lasted for hours.
One of the options "discussed" there was that the mysterious woman "and her companion" would buy a majority share in Austria's major tabloid - Kronen Zeitung - and use it to prop up FPO's bid in the October 2017 national election.The FPO narrowly came in third place and became a junior partner in the current ruling coalition.
In exchange, the politicians said the woman's construction business could get government contracts once the party is in power. The politicians also discussed alleged circumventing of Austria's transparency laws for political donations by funneling money through a charity.
The scandal led to opposition calls for the two politicians implicated to resign and even for the coalition to break up, which could lead to a snap election. On Saturday, Strache confirmed the meeting but insisted the information was taken out of context. He still
announced his resignation as FPO chief and vice chancellor not to damage the ruling coalition.
Gudenus did the same, giving up his mandate as a member of the Austrian Parliament.That said, some pundits already had their usual Russiagate meltdowns, alleging the tape proves that the FPO was bought and paid-for by Moscow, which conspired with the right-wing party to destroy Austria's freedom of the press. The pièce de résistance in this claim is that
the woman Strache and Gudenus talked with is described as a "suspected Russian oligarch niece."
The German outlets indeed say the woman spoke Russian and English. This leaves a pretty large field of options for who she might be besides a relative of a Kremlin-controlled businessman, through whom the Russian government may have wanted to gain influence in Austria.
Strache himself said on Saturday
the woman was a Russian-speaking Latvian national, who told Gudenus that she and her daughter wanted to move to Vienna to secure the meeting.
He added they were an obvious plant, considering how the situation played out.Notably,
Der Spiegel article itself says that
the video was "clearly done as a trap" for the FPO politicians. The scandal conveniently erupted days before the European Parliament election in Austria and may understandably hurt the FPO's performance. Anyway, if the "niece" was a Russian government agent, it doesn't seem that she managed to get Strache and Gudenus on board with some plan to subvert the election. At least the reports say
no agreements were reached at the meeting. The
Kronen Zeitung tabloid did partially change ownership after the discussion, but it happened in autumn 2018 and the buyer was Austrian entrepreneur Rene Benko, who told
Spiegel the deal was purely commercial.
Comment:
After the leaked video scandal,
Strache tendered his resignation
Speaking to the media on Saturday, Strache said he has submitted his resignation letter to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Strache also stepped down as leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), the junior member of the Austrian ruling coalition.
He insisted that he and his fellow party member Johann Gudenus were victims of a long-running smear campaign, which culminated in the release of the "illegally recorded" footage. "It was political assassination," the politician stated.
During the media conference, Strache insisted his party didn't benefit in any way from the meeting and that the nature of the conversations has been misrepresented by the German journalists.
He did stress those behind it were "waiting for two years" to release the footage. Notably, the publication comes days ahead of the European Parliament election in Austria. Transport Minister Norbert Hofer is to replace him as both party leader and vice chancellor, provided that the coalition survives the unfolding scandal.
The scandal has sparked a wave of public outrage leading to a spontaneous massive protest in Vienna, outside of the Chancellor's Office, which was joined by some 5,000 people.
Snap elections 'as soon as possible' says Chancellor Kurz:
President Alexander van der Bellen confirmed he and Kurz have already discussed snap elections, calling them "the only way to restore trust in public institutions."
Kurz criticized the leak that led to the scandal by saying that the methods used to expose Strache's misdeeds were "despicable". "What is really problematic and of great importance here is the ideas of power abuse and misuse of taxpayers' money as well as the approach to the media landscape in our country."
The scandal rocked the Austrian society with thousands of people taking to the streets to demand snap elections.
This was clearly a 'hit' against Austria. The recorded sting operation took place in 2017, and has clearly been 'on the books' since then for use 'when the time was right'.
That it was released by German media means it came via German intelligence, and thus with US-UK involvement. Chancellor Kurz is already onto them though, calling their bluff by calling snap election, likely to happen after the summer.
We'll see then whether Austrian voters are 'appalled' that its leadership even dared to consider doing business with Russia...
UPDATE: 5/19/2019, RT: So who wasn't this mystery woman?
Igor Makarov, a Russian oligarch whose supposed "niece" was filmed discussing alleged shady deals with the Austrian vice-chancellor, stated he has no family links to that woman as he was "an only child" in his family.
"It is widely known that I was the only child in my family, and I have no nieces whatsoever," Makarov's spokesperson told Forbes' Russian edition. "I have no family bonds with the woman who calls herself Alena Makarova and I don't know her at all," he added.
While Spiegel did not identify the woman in their initial article, Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote that she was introduced to the politicians as "a niece" of Igor Makarov, "a Russian oligarch close to [President Vladimir] Putin." As the story unfolds, Makarov's company is now "using all lawful means to establish who was behind the illegal use of [his] name."
Makarov is the founder of Itera (now Areti), Russia's first non-state gas company. In the late-1990s, the firm re-sold gas from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, where Makarov was born. He is ranked 48th in the list of Russia's wealthiest people with an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion.
UPDATE: 5/19/2019, RT: Prosecutor won't launch probe into video scandal - 'No proof of crime'
Austrian prosecutors have examined the scandalous videotape which cost vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache his job and said they couldn't find any grounds to launch an investigation over its content.
"There's no specific proof of a crime being committed coming from this [the video]," Oesterreich 1 radio revealed, citing the statement from the prosecutors.
The Justice Ministry's General Secretary Christian Pilnacek earlier warned that there were only extracts of the footage available, which would make it impossible to assess the full context of what was going on.
Comment:
After the leaked video scandal, Strache tendered his resignation Snap elections 'as soon as possible' says Chancellor Kurz: This was clearly a 'hit' against Austria. The recorded sting operation took place in 2017, and has clearly been 'on the books' since then for use 'when the time was right'.
That it was released by German media means it came via German intelligence, and thus with US-UK involvement. Chancellor Kurz is already onto them though, calling their bluff by calling snap election, likely to happen after the summer.
We'll see then whether Austrian voters are 'appalled' that its leadership even dared to consider doing business with Russia...
UPDATE: 5/19/2019, RT: So who wasn't this mystery woman? UPDATE: 5/19/2019, RT: Prosecutor won't launch probe into video scandal - 'No proof of crime'