After the Salzburg triumph

“Toxic brand”: Schüssel attacks KPÖ head-on

Former Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP)Schüssel sharply criticizes the recent candidacies under the KPÖ.

(Bild: APA/EXPA/JOHANN GRODER)

Former Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) has sharply criticized candidacies under the "label or brand" KPÖ following the election success of Kay-Michael Dankl 's communists in Salzburg. "This is unbelievable", said Schüssel. Something like that "shouldn't even be used these days": "The brand is toxic."

Dankl may be a "nice young man", but: "Someone will have to explain to me why he is running under KPÖ." He would "strongly recommend that he abandon the brand in a flash", explained the former chancellor, who governed Austria from 2000 to 2007.

Reference to Stalin and Mao
Schüssel saw the problem more deeply. Austria "rightly" has a "culture of coming to terms" with the horrific Nazi era. "But we completely forget to point out what Mao or Stalin did. Millions of deaths. Crimes against humanity that should be placed on the same level. There is not enough coverage of this at universities, in schools or in the media," said the former ÖVP Federal Chancellor and party chairman. "Otherwise there is no such thing," Schüssel said in an interview with the APA in relation to KPÖ candidacies.

The communist Kay-Michael Dankl is causing a sensation.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV, Andreas Tröster, Markus Tschepp)

Until the fall of communism in the Eastern Bloc, "half of Austria was surrounded by the Iron Curtain", Schüssel recalled on the fringes of an election campaign event organized by "das Neue Innsbruck" in the Tyrolean capital: "We had more deaths and injuries along this death zone than along the entire inner-German, much longer border." The ex-chancellor's warning: "Anyone who talks down communism today doesn't know what they're talking about."

Anyone who talks down communism today doesn't know what they're talking about.

Altbundeskanzler Wolfgang Schüssel

"The ÖVP is still the European party"
Asked about the ÖVP's chances in the upcoming elections, Schüssel said he "very much" hoped that it would be successful. With regard to the EU elections, he explained that the ÖVP was still "the European party", while the FPÖ and the Greens had campaigned massively against Austria's accession to the EU 30 years ago in the course of the referendum. "Also Kogler and Van der Bellen. We need to remind ourselves of that," Schüssel alluded to the current Vice-Chancellor and the Federal President.

Schüssel believes the People's Party is well positioned for the National Council elections. "We have outstanding personalities to offer that no other party has. Top people, absolute professionals", said the former Chancellor, naming Chancellor Karl Nehammer, European Affairs Minister Karoline Edtstadler, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg and Finance Minister Magnus Brunner: "If it were purely a question of competence, the choice would not be so difficult."

"Kickl is not a demon, but ..." 
FPÖ Federal Party Chairman Herbert Kickl is not a "demon", as he is often described, said Schüssel in response to a corresponding question: "No Austrian politician is a demon. We should get rid of this exaggeration, this polarization, that some are the shining lights and others are the demons." But: he had always experienced Kickl "as an opponent" when it came to his coalition partner, the FPÖ. This was the case both in 2000, when the black-blue coalition with Jörg Haider and Susanne Riess was formed, and in 2005, when the BZÖ split from the FPÖ and continued to govern with the Haider alliance: "Herbert Kickl was always on the other side."