Strache after setback: From Vice Chancellor to District Council in Floridsdorf!

Strache after setback: From Vice Chancellor to District Council in Floridsdorf!

On June 11, 2025, Heinz-Christian Strache, the former head of the FPÖ, celebrated a return to the Austrian political landscape - albeit on a modest scale. At the constituent meeting of the Floridsdorf district council, the ex-vice chancellor was sworn in as district councilor. Times may have been more glamorous when he was in charge of the government, but today the reality is very different. Strache ran in the local council and district council elections in April with his “Team HC Strache”, but had to accept massive losses and clearly failed to get into the local council with only 1.1% of the vote.

The FPÖ has lost a lot of its potential in recent years. We heard about 17 district mandates in 2020, now there are just two left, in Floridsdorf and Donaustadt. “The salary of a district councilor is too low to live on,” said SPÖ city councilor Jürgen Czernohorszky, because Strache can look forward to almost 600 euros per month. Nevertheless, he accepts the mandate out of responsibility for his home district and has announced that he will no longer run in elections - this was his last run.

The shadows of the past

Strache's career is heavily influenced by the so-called Ibiza affair, which shook the political peace in Austria in May 2019. This video showed him and Johann Gudenus discussing corruption and media control with a supposed niece of a Russian oligarch. The publication of the video by German media caused a scandal that had unprecedented political consequences and led to the termination of the coalition between the ÖVP and FPÖ. Shortly afterwards, both Strache and Gudenus resigned from their positions and the then Chancellor Sebastian Kurz declared the end of the collaboration.

The investigation into the Ibiza affair is a chapter that has not yet been closed, even years later. The Ibiza Committee of Inquiry was set up in January 2020 to investigate the alleged venality of the turquoise-blue federal government. Numerous house searches were carried out and the Vienna public prosecutor's office investigated Strache and Gudenus for breach of trust and accepting benefits. The investigation has been ongoing since it became known in September 2023 that the alleged oligarch's niece was actually a Latvian citizen.

A country full of scandals

The Ibiza affair is just one of many scandals that have accompanied Austrian politics for years. Walter Geyer, the first anti-corruption prosecutor, emphasizes that such scandals often lead to stricter laws, but that a definitive end to corruption is hardly possible. A look at the 2018 Corruption Perception Index shows that Austria ranks behind countries like Finland and Sweden.

Political affairs, corruption and the pursuit of more transparency are topics that move people's minds in Austria. While some scandals like Noricum are no longer conceivable today, there are current cases like Buwog and the Telekom scandal that continue to strain trust in politics. Dealing with corruption remains a hot topic, and Strache is not the only one who has to face the questions that concern the public.

A new phase has begun for Strache in Floridsdorf, but the weight of his past accompanies him - and also the political landscape in Austria, which is trying to deal with the issue of corruption. It remains to be seen how things will develop and whether Strache will really step out of the spotlight.