Mr Paillasse is back in town
The nouveau-riche Austro-Canadian FRANK STRONACH buys himself into Austrian politics almost the same way he did with car manufacturing some decades ago. Will the banana republic in the Alps thus see the rise of a new Berlusconi? Or is it just another melodramatic act in the Austrian state farce?
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Austria has much more in common with its post-communist neighbors than it would gladly admit: On the one hand, there are the numerous corruption cases that have shaken the country even north of Carinthia (as previously reported). They seem to confirm how prescient the Austrian chancellor Prince Metternich was in the 1820s when he said that the Balkans begin on the Rennweg, a street in East Vienna (a little solace for my Croatian friends). On the other hand, there is that species of self-mad(e) men in Austria as well: multi-millionaires coming home from (preferably English-speaking) exile and then behaving as the national savior to be.
One of them is Frank Stronach. Born in 1932 under the PR-incompatible name Franz Strohsack (“paillasse”) in Kleinsemmering, a village in backwater Styria, he learned the profession of a toolmaker in the nearby small town of Weiz. Today he owns most of what is left of the industry there. Wealth began for him after a little Swiss interlude (where he tried his luck as a soccer player), when he emigrated to Canada in 1954, allegedly with only $ 200 in his pocket. Today he is 1.5 billion U.S. worth and ranked number 1015 among the richest people in the world.
However parallel to the bodybuilding success story of his compatriot Arni Schwarzenegger, this other Styrian managed without too many physical effort, but with a new, Canada-affine name, to become one of the largest suppliers in the transatlantic car industries. His Magna Holding has ever since produced parts in Canada and Austria, which probably keep also your car together: it doesn’t need to be a Mercedes, Jeep or Chrysler to have Frank’s magma inside.
But as with Arni , the story does not simply end there. At the turn of the millennium, Stronach bought himself into the First Austrian Soccer League and particularly into one of its traditional clubs, FK Austria Wien, which turned out to be a loss transaction not only in sportive terms; after fan protests he had to retire in 2007. Even Frank’s Energy Drink through which Stronach wanted to compete with Red Bull Dieter Mateschitz (another Styrian billionaire, ranked 193 in the world) proved to be a flop.
Stronach’s political helper syndrome, however, was cultivated in Canada already where it was briefly outsourced to his daughter Belinda. Being rather right-leaning like her dad, she suddenly morphed into a seasoned Liberal in the early years of the 21st century, obviously because the Conservative Party had not given her its chair. All that Magna pragmatism was rewarded with a liberal minister post and a parliamentary seat in Ottawa, before Pretty Belinda returned to the paternal industries.
But soon Papa Stronach took over the political branch of the family business again. And in the summer of 2012, the sportive right-wing jock who had already been unpopular among trade unions in Austria for his turbo capitalism, raised public attention with fo(u)nding a new party.
Opinion polls expect that in the national elections of 2013, the new Team Stronach for Austria could get over the parliament’s 5% threshold with its breath-taking program of “truth, transparency and fairness” (and the elimination of the Euro?). No wonder why long-established right-wing populists like the scandal-battered FPÖ and the decomposing BZÖ are overcome by cold shiver: the “roll up!” guy from Styrian North America threatens to channel the current political frustrations of the Austrian population his way, and perhaps Mr Strohsack is even going to put them into his (straw) bag.
But is there any political content? After all, Mr. Stronach had little squeamish when it came to collect the thousands of signatures which are necessary for the legal establishment of a party in Austria. Instead, he rather chose to take a shortcut and poached some backbenchers from other parties by persuading these fellows to work for him: for he who has the declaration of support from three Members of Parliament must not hunt the signatures of ordinary people…
It remains to be seen whether the Austrian voter infuriated by rampant party corruption is that easily convinced by Stronach’s political shopping trip through the provinces, which delivered him three cute yes-men. Really big names, minds and ideas Stronach has not to offer yet – except for his own, of course.
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Text (c) Ruthner & LIDOVÉ NOVINY, 2012 – GERMAN VERSION>
Illustration (c) Dan Adel, dbusiness.com, 2011
delirium clemens 
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