It governs most of the federal states. She provides most of the mayors. From 1945 to 1970 the Chancellor came from their ranks. She already has a subscription to Austria’s EU Commissioner. She has been sitting on the government bench without interruption for 35 years. Opposition cannot endure this formation, it contradicts their nature, which is closely interwoven with offices and functions. We are talking about the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), which was founded in 1945 as the successor party to the Christian Social Party.
Still, the party didn’t have much to laugh about in between. Defeats paved their way. The old regular electorate was lost rapidly. Sebastian Kurz was the first to tear the ÖVP out of the continuous and seemingly inevitable descent. In the short term, he and his young comrades-in-arms even succeeded in turning the People’s Party into a real party. Until then, it was just an umbrella organization of state organizations and federations (workers’ and employees’ federation, farmers’ federation, business federation, senior citizens’ federation). But short is history. Meanwhile, no rooster crows after him. Was there something? In just a few years, most of them will no longer know what happened and who did it. And indeed, one would not know what to refer to. The phenomenon has fizzled out. The “flare” (ÖVP-PR) has burned out. The votes Kurz collected were of an economic nature. Easy Come Easy Go. There was no foundation, no substance, there was nothing. Nobody cries for the “talent of the century” (ÖVP-PR). What was planned as an era turned out to be an incident.
Chancellery comes first
It was opinion polls – some ordered and manipulated – that pushed Sebastian Kurz to the top of the party and state, and election successes that kept him there. A country was delighted and inflamed. Sebastian was a projection. But now the projector is switched off and the projection gone. The fans are disappointed and withdrawn. Kurz turned out not to be the stroke of luck that he was considered yesterday. In August 2021 he was celebrated at a party conference. Three months later he was gone. Not just almost gone, but completely gone. His mentors in the federal states dropped him. Faced with the decision of whether Kurz should go or the government should go, it was clear what the decision would be. After all, they wanted to save the chancellery and not be pushed into the opposition.
Sebastian Kurz had neither a message nor a broadcast, even though he was constantly on the air with his messages. Because he understood his media craft very well, yes, he even got better and better, hardly showed any weaknesses in this regard. Of course, saying nothing so skilfully is also an art, nowadays a political asset. This policy does not set any accents. Regarding migration, the content of the xenophobic FPÖ was unabashedly adopted. Internationally one is loyal to the USA and despite neutrality to NATO, the EU is sacrosanct anyway.
There was nothing unique about Kurz. Not a hint of originality touched the man. His speeches on the state of the nation are waste. They are bursting with typical slogans that politicians just recite: invoke values, boost the economy, secure the location, advance digitization, stop climate change; You are sustainable anyway, and you also do gender. The Greens have agreed on the formula of the eco-social market economy. However, the ÖVP is no longer a classic right-wing party; it has liberalized in recent years, including on socio-political issues. So their dominance has little to do with conservative hegemony and more with a liberal stew that is currently being served almost everywhere.
Danube Claudillo? Oh well
In particular, however, it was about the performative performance. The following was conditioned to the hero’s radiance. In the past, there was less of a need for this because the electorate was divided into camps, which behaved accordingly. Today we are dealing more and more with amorphous masses, which can be composed in any way and often only last for a short time. Postmodern attachment is not persistent, but fast-moving, sometimes here, sometimes there, sometimes somewhere, sometimes nowhere. Also, the grandchildren, if they vote at all, do not necessarily vote for what the grandparents voted for.
Describing Sebastian Kurz as a “Danube Claudillo” or even a “Baby Hitler” is misleading. The operations he set, made possible, caused or allowed were nothing out of the ordinary. For Kurz’s clique, their own advantage was always the main thing. In its most primitive form, it was about greed and money, power and influence. This game dominated the turquoise-lacquered people’s party like the old black one. Posts and benefices were quickly given away. That’s not new, at best the impudence was new. In the end, however, the stupidity was greater than the impudence, since one had completely overlooked the fact that nothing disappears in the digital dimension. No SMS that couldn’t show up, no chat that can be finally shredded. The “Geilomobil” (ÖVP-PR from further Kurz days), which always increased the speed on the Siegerstraße, crashed into a lamppost set up by the public prosecutor’s office during an overtaking maneuver. The fact that Kurz threw in the towel because of these tours makes him appear as an unparalleled lightweight. He didn’t have what it takes to be Netanyahu (whom he often cited as a role model). No trace of stayer qualities.
The successors clear away the rubbish, above all the various scandals left behind by the Kurz company mean that some effort can be expected. With the forthcoming parliamentary committee of inquiry, trouble is in the offing. First you try to limit the damage. Otherwise, the old pecking order in the ÖVP (countries-bundes-party headquarters) has been restored. Was there something? The departure turned out to be a sham. The erosion of the black regiments was only interrupted by that brief turquoise spring.
Karl Nehammer, the new man at the helm of the party and government, is attempting a change of image. The former party secretary and interior minister, formerly Kurzen’s ruffian, who once wanted to cut through the chain of infection with the Flex and dubbed those criticizing the measures as “life-threatening”, now wants to approach them and currently try his luck as a moderate liberator from the pandemic. Whether that will work is questionable. Last weekend there was a bitter defeat in the local council elections in Tyrol. And not against the classic competitors SPÖ, FPÖ or Greens, but against the vaccination and measure-critical list MFG (Human Freedom Basic Rights). She was able to run for elections in 51 municipalities and often achieve respectable results in excess of ten percent.