Austrian prosecutors are investigating the leader of the anti-globalist, right-wing party FPÖ, Herbert Kickl on suspicion of using public funds to pay for adverts in return for alleged favourable media coverage. The party has accused the government and the “deep state” of attempting to tarnish their image before the upcoming European and national elections.
The prosecutor’s office responsible for economic crime and corruption (WKStA) said on Monday, April 29th, that they had launched an investigation into Kickl and several former government members. The case dates back to when the FPÖ was in a coalition with the centre-right People’s Party (ÖVP). According to the accusations, between 2018 and 2019 the tabloid Österreich received lucrative adverts paid for by public funds, in exchange for favourable media coverage of the FPÖ. The adverts were allegedly commissioned by then-Interior Minister Kickl and other members of his party, including then-party leader Heinz-Christian Strache.
The accusations come at a time when the FPÖ has been leading opinion polls for the past year-and-a-half, with European elections coming up in June, and national elections set to be held in the autumn. The party, which is campaigning on a hard anti-immigration platform, could receive as much as 30% of the votes, its largest share so far. The opposition Social Democrats are currently polling at 23%, while the governing centre-right ÖVP is on 20%.
An FPÖ statement said the party was “relaxed” about the investigation and “100% convinced” it would not be taken further. The party maintains that the advertising contracts had been awarded objectively. The sole purpose of the investigation, they said, was to harm the FPÖ. The statement referred to the fact that the prosecutors of the WKStA had initially not initiated a probe into the affair, but were urged on by the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office to do so. The WKStA had concluded that chat messages they obtained between members of the FPÖ and the owner of the media company were “too vague” to warrant an investigation. They also noted that public funds paid for Österreich had not been “systematically higher” during that period. According to FPÖ, the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office is “infiltrated by the ÖVP,” hence the investigation.
The owner and editor of the tabloid, Wolfgang Fellner also said there had been no collusion with the FPÖ. Their articles had been written independently, without political bias towards the party, he added, and more than a dozen court cases and lawsuits had been launched between the FPÖ and the paper at that time, excluding any possibility of collaboration.
The case is reminiscent of a previous affair involving former ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. He, too, was accused of using public funds to pay for manipulated opinion polls published in newspapers to boost his image. The corruption scandal surrounding Kurz is credited as the catalyst for his resignation as chancellor in October 2021.
