Further comments on Strache’s downfall
May 22nd, 2019As Austria braces for snap elections in the wake of the video scandal that destroyed the leader of the junior coalition partner, the Hungarian media continues to analyse the scandal that brought down Austria’s coalition government.
On hvg online, Zoltán Ceglédi thinks a similar scandal would leave the Hungarian government unscathed, for it has more control over public opinion. He finds it telling that in the video that caused his downfall, Austrian nationalist leader and Vice Chancellor Strache said he wanted help from a Russian oligarch to create a media environment similar to the one which exists in Hungary.
On Mérce, Csaba Tibor Tóth lambasts the pro-government press for keeping silent over Strache’s words about Hungary. He remarks however that the government-controlled MTI News Agency did mention the matter, although it only devoted a single sentence to it.
In Magyar Hírlap, Mariann Őry is certain that Strache’s videotaped meeting with a person he was led to believe was the niece of a Russian oligarch was staged by forces who wanted to damage anti-immigration parties in Europe. She disagrees with Hungarian opposition politicians who celebrate Chancellor Kurz as a moral authority after he dismissed his coalition partner. Kurz, Őry writes, acted out of pure pragmatism by trying to distance himself from the scandal.
In Magyar Nemzet, Zsolt Bayer describes Strache as a dilettante politician ‘silly’ enough to fall for a cheap provocation. He believes the Austrian nationalist leader was trapped by secret services who are at work wherever ‘the national interest enjoys majoritarian support’. He thinks Hungary and Russia must be on their list.