The elections for the European Parliament are over. The Freedom Party? Well, almost everybody and I had hoped to see them crushed.
Instead? They are down by 2.2% to slightly more than 17%.
Figure this: you have a party, the leader of which is recorded on video, promising all sorts of corruption to the alleged daughter of a russian oligarch, in exchange for illegal support for his party. He is totally frank about this and it is not the first time in his party.
In Strache’s case he could at least claim that it was all fictitious. Some years ago another leading member of his party was convicted in a similar but real case, known as the “part of the game” affair.
Jörg Haider, the former leader of the party, was involved in a big corruption scandal about Carinthia’s biggest bank. In the end - and with the help of incompetence from all parties - it cost Austrian tax payers 18 billion Euros.
And now that you know all this: would you vote for those guys? Would you feel your money safe? Your country in good hands?
For 17% of Austrian voters the answer seems to be “yes”.