Stronach’s Political Ambition

On 2 May 2012 the Austro-Canadian businessman Frank Stronach published his political credo Wegweiser für Österreich (Guide for Austria) as an eight-page advertisement in the tabloid papers Heute and Kronen Zeitung. 

 

 

 

 

ÖVP-Killer Stronach, 4 May

by Hans Rauscher

Twenty years ago, when the Democrazia Cristiana collapsed in Italy because of corruption and lack of ideas, three political heirs emerged: the anti-immigration regionalist party Lega Nord, as well as the Alleanza Nationale, fascist at first and now right-wing conservative; and most significantly, Cavaliere Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire, who bribed people for votes.

Our Berlusconi is called Frank Stronach. With his money, he would like to transform Austria’s political landscape and its constitution. However, he probably won’t be as successful as Berlusconi, by any means. Nevertheless, he will cause serious political damage to the Austrian Christian Democrats.

Indeed, Frank Stronach could be the conservative ÖVP’s deathblow. But his political ideas and reform agenda – published recently as a supplement to daily mass newspapers – won’t work. Some of the proposed policy measures are absurd in part at least (a random generator should select individual citizens, who then submit proposals to parliament). In any case, he threatens to seize a core topic the ÖVP is guilty of neglecting: a clear commitment to free-market economy.

 

 

 

 

Austro-Canadian Banalities, 6 May

by Andreas Koller

Industrialist Frank Stronach’s recently published action program Eine Revolution für Österreich (A Revolution for Austria) proves one point in partlicular: It would be better to entrust politics to paid specialists, namely politicians, than to put it into the hands of Austro-Canadian manufacturers.

Four things are particularly striking about Stronach’s program: First of all, it was published as a supplement by those apostles of intellectual insight, Krone and Heute. Readers of other newspapers might otherwise be too clever to be taken in by this hobby-politician.

Secondly, it was written in bad German – possibly translated from Austro-Canadian by automated translation software.

Thirdly, the text contains mental leaps and banalities. As an example: "The creation of wealth and the reduction of poverty are aims that go hand in hand." Bravo! And how should these aims be achieved? By creating a "framework, which offer incentives for creating wealth and thus reducing poverty." To say it in another way: Everything should get better. How? By letting things get better.