What Happened in Austria?

 To sum it up....there's this political party....(in English, the Austrian People's Party) named Österreichische Volkspartei, or ÖVP for short. 

Theme?  Right of center (by European standards).....liberal-conservative.

They've been around since the end of WW II.

So, they've lead the country a couple of times, and around the 2003 period....they partnered up with some further-to-the-right folks (FPO), and this invited a lot of news media criticism.  Labeling-wise, ÖVP has a Trump-like shadow hanging over it.

Who leads the ÖVP?  Well...Sebastian Kurz.  The best description of this guy....if you molded JFK into Senator Ted Cruz....pumped some Brad Pitt in.....you'd get a youth Kurz (36 years old).  The guy is not stupid or lacking in intelligence.

ÖVP has a wannabe-scandal brewing, and it goes like this.  Someone 'whispered' that Kurz (via the party) paid for positive reporting from a news media company....in order to move up as the party leader and later get the Chancellor job of Austria.  Some of the original funding was insider money (as the story goes), and later became public (state) money.  Yeah, it's a misappropriation suggestion.

Proof?  Well....only in the past week have police/investigators raided the Austrian  Federal Chancellery and the party headquarters.

So the real question is....did anyone bribe the newspapers or outlets to pump positive words over the youthful Kurz....say ten years ago?  Did the pro-Kurz team go and pay a polling group or two to conduct a 'good' result poll to boost Kurz?  Did government funding get used at any point?

Odds of this investigation being dragged out for a year or more?  No doubt.

So Kurz....because the coalition junior partner party (the Greens) were threatening to quit the coalition was stuck in a bad position.  To halt the situation going to another election....he announced via the party, he'd resign as Chancellor.  New Chancellor (chosen from within the ÖVP)?  Alexander Schallenberg.  Best description of Schallenberg?  Older guy (early 50s), former lawyer, was the Foreign Minister, fairly bright and capable for the job.

On the charismatic scale?   Probably one step down from Kurz.  

Kurz done in politics?  No.  What I kinda expect here is that a full year will be wasted on the investigation, and the prosecutors will have to admit that there isn't a bribe deal except for five-star hotel stays for a weekend for a journalist or two.  Odds of cash being exchanged (on paper or leaving a trail)?  No.....maybe some idiot from the party handed 10,000 Euro over for exceptional reporting but no journalist is going to admit he was bought off (if you made this a big crime....probably fifty of Austria's finest journalists would have to resign).

So things will clear by 2024, and that's the next election period in Austria....with Kurz returning as the power-player of the party.

What the polls say currently?   ÖVP still holds national trends at 35-percent roughly (leading the pack).  The Greens?  Way back at 10-percent.  The SPO folks (direct opposition) stand at 22-percent.  I expect a brief fall (say 2 to 3 points) for the ÖVP, and the Greens/SPO split the gain .  

A lot of hype over something that may only be a particular poll or two to give three to six 'extra' points to Kurz and his team?  Or was this a five-star hotel weekend for some journalists?  Well....yeah, that's kind of the way I think this will play out.  

To be honest, you could design one single poll in several ways to look good for this guy or this party.....with this being a fairly normal goal of most parties. 

The journalist who is centered on this investigation?  No one says much, and I'm guessing his/her newspaper group are asking a lot of questions because if there was a bribe....they certainly didn't get any of the cashflow.  

I will make this final observation....Austrian politics revolves around scandals for the most part.  About every five years....some scandal has to occur, and it intrigues everyone for about twelve months...speculating over who or what occurred.  Then the smoke clears and some prosecutor has to announce that the five-star scandal is really a two-star scandal at best, and everyone opens a bottle of Champaign to celebrate.  

Kurz will write a book or two in this period of free time....be publicly seen every weekend, and probably improve his ballroom dancing skills.  The hope of dismantling the guy?  Limited, at best.