Strache after setback: From Vice Chancellor to the district council in Floridsdorf!

Strache after setback: From Vice Chancellor to the district council in Floridsdorf!

Floridsdorf, Österreich - On June 11, 2025, Heinz-Christian Strache, the former head of the FPÖ, celebrated a return to the Austrian political landscape-albeit in a modest setting. At the constituent meeting of the Floridsdorf district council, the ex-Vice-Chancellor was praised as a district council. May the times be more brilliant than he steered the fortunes of the government, but today reality looks very different. Strache competed with his “Team HC Strache” in the local council and district representative elections in April, but had to accept massive losses and clearly failed to move into the local council with only 1.1 % of the votes.

The FPÖ has lost its potential in recent years. So you heard of 17 district mandates in 2020, now there are just two, in Floridsdorf and Donaustadt. "The salary of a district council is too low to be able to live on it," said the SPÖ city councilor Jürgen Czernohorszky, because Strache can look forward to almost 600 euros per month. Nevertheless, he takes over the mandate out of responsibility for his home district and has announced that it was no longer in elections - this was his last start.

The shadows of the past

Strache's career is strongly shaped by the so-called Ibiza affair, which shook political peace in Austria in May 2019. This video showed him and Johann Gudenus how to discuss corruption and media control with a supposed niece of a Russian oligarch. The publication of the video by German media ensured a scandal that had never -ending political consequences and led to the end of the coalition between the ÖVP and FPÖ. Shortly thereafter, both Strache and Gudenus resigned from their posts 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 completed years later. The Ibiza investigation committee was deployed in January 2020 to investigate the alleged buyability of the turquoise-blue federal government. Numerous house searches were carried out and the Vienna public prosecutor's office was determined against Strache and Gudenus for infidelity and benefits. The investigation is currently being carried out since it became known in September 2023 that the alleged oligarchenia is actually a Latvian citizen.

a country full of scandals

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

political affairs, corruption and the striving for more transparency are topics that move the mind in Austria. While some scandals like Noricum are no longer conceivable today, there are current cases such as Buwog and the Telekom scandal that continue to burden the trust in politics. Dealing with corruption remains a hot iron, and not only Strache has to ask the questions that the public concerns.

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