Focused Interference in Austrian Politics
Many Austrian intellectuals hold the Kronen Zeitung responsible for the gains of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) in the 1999 elections, claiming its journalism is selective to an unacceptable degree.
However, until 2007 the effect of the Kronen-Zeitung on Austrian politics, though regarded as extremely strong, had ultimately been indirect. In 2008 a new policy became apparent when the paper orchestrated a focused (and successful) campaign for the replacement of chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer as the head of the SPÖ by Werner Faymann, a decade-long close friend of Hans Dichand.
On 27 June 2008 while the change of the guard at the top of the SPÖ was still ongoing, the paper published an open letter by Faymann (co-signed by Gusenbauer) to Dichand in which the politicians announced that the party would make Austrian acceptance of EU decisions in "important matters" (such as a rephrasing of the EU Treaty or the admission of Turkey as a new member) contingent on the outcome of an Austrian popular referendum on such matters. This amounted to a U-turn in socialist policy, and constituted an adoption of a long-term central demand of the Kronen-Zeitung. In the campaign for the snap elections of 28 September 2008 which were to a large part precipitated by this action, the Kronen-Zeitung openly and massively campaigned for Faymann as the next chancellor.
However, in the campaign for the June 2009 European parliament elections the Kronen-Zeitung threw its entire weight behind Hans-Peter Martin, a populist ex-member of the SPÖ's European parliamentary faction. Although it is impossible to quantify the exact contribution of the Kronen-Zeitung's support for Hans-Peter Martin's List to the 17.9% of the Austrian votes it secured in these elections, this figure is an approximate indicator for the newspaper's political muscle. According to a post-vote poll by the agency Gfk Austria, 70% of Hans-Peter Martin's List voters at that election were readers of the Kronen-Zeitung, and 29% of all Kronen-Zeitung readers actually voted for him.
Read more about this topic: Kronen Zeitung
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