VIENNA — It appeared like a miracle. For years, Austria’s conservative get together had languished far behind its rivals. Then in May 2017, the polls spectacularly reversed, giving the conservatives newfound credibility that helped them persuade voters that they'd an actual likelihood of successful. Five months later, in elections, they did.
The man credited with the miracle was Sebastian Kurz. Only 31, well-dressed and well-mannered, with slick hair and even slicker social media slogans, he turned Austria’s youngest-ever chancellor and fashioned a authorities with the far proper.
Elected the identical 12 months President Donald J. Trump took workplace, Mr. Kurz was rapidly seen in Europe because the poster boy of an ascendant proper for a brand new era, a political Wunderkind who had salvaged conservatism by borrowing the far proper’s agenda, buffing it up and bringing it into the mainstream.
It appeared too good to be true. And, it seems, it was.
Prosecutors now say that many polls earlier than that election have been falsified and that Mr. Kurz and a small cabal of allies with cultlike devotion to him paid off one among Austria’s greatest tabloids to make sure favorable information protection. Once in energy, prosecutors say, he institutionalized the system, utilizing taxpayers’ cash to raise the looks of his personal reputation and punish journalists and media shops that criticized him.
“What voters saw wasn’t real,” mentioned Helmut Brandstätter, a former newspaper editor turned lawmaker who was bullied by Mr. Kurz and pressured to go away his job. “It was a scheme to influence elections and undermine democracy.”
“The image of the perfect politician, it was all fake,” Mr. Brandstätter mentioned. “The real Sebastian Kurz is someone far more sinister.”
Mr. Kurz, who stepped down as chancellor on Oct. 9, has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crime, however he stays underneath investigation for bribery and embezzlement. His downfall has reverberated throughout Europe, the place lots of the conventional center-right events he as soon as impressed are actually in disaster.
In a month when journalists received a Nobel Prize for holding governments to account, Austria’s scandal has put a highlight on the conspicuously symbiotic relationship between populist, right-wing leaders and sympathetic components of the information media.
Mr. Kurz, prosecutors say, purchased off Austria’s third-largest tabloid with over 1,000,000 euros in bribes — disguised as labeled promoting.
“Kurz has used many of the same methods as other national populists,” mentioned Natascha Strobl, the creator of “Radicalized Conservatism,” a ebook in regards to the shift to the correct of conventional conservatives. “The corrupt collusion with friendly media and the attempt to silence critical journalists is part of the toolbox.”
Prosecutors name Mr. Kurz “the central figure” in an elaborate scheme to control public opinion that included a number of members of his inside circle, in addition to two pollsters and two house owners of the tabloid Österreich.
The case towards him reads like a political thriller. In 104 pages, obtained by The New York Times, prosecutors meticulously doc a secret plan to control public opinion as a way to win energy after which cement their maintain.
The subterranean instrument of shopping for rigged opinion polling and media protection is printed in exceptional element in chat exchanges recovered from the cellphone of one among Mr. Kurz’s closest allies and buddies, Thomas Schmid.
Mr. Schmid held a collection of senior posts within the Finance Ministry and went climbing with Mr. Kurz. He was one among a handful of loyal supporters who referred to as themselves the “praetorians,” after the elite guard of Roman emperors.
Their devotion was seemingly absolute. “YOU ARE MY HERO!” Mr. Schmid wrote to Mr. Kurz in one among their many exchanges, and in one other, “I am one of your praetorians who doesn’t create problems but solves them.”
The downside Mr. Kurz had in 2016 was that he was not the chief of his conservative People’s Party. He was overseas minister in an unpopular coalition authorities led by the center-left Social Democrats. In order to turn into chancellor, he needed to take over his personal get together first.
So he began scheming with the praetorians.
The plan they drew up was referred to as “Operation Ballhausplatz” — after the chancellery’s handle in Vienna. One doc outlined from “preparation” to “takeover” how Mr. Kurz’s rival atop the conservative get together could possibly be undermined with polls saying that “everything is better” with Mr. Kurz on the helm.
“Given the reluctance inside the party, Sebastian Kurz had to pursue his plan covertly,” prosecutors write, noting that the plan would “incur considerable costs, and that also made a cover-up of the financing inevitable.”
Mr. Schmid, within the Finance Ministry, had entry to cash. He made certain Mr. Kurz’s media funds within the Foreign Ministry received a big increase, and he discovered methods to bill for the covert polling that didn't present up in official accounts, prosecutors say.
The mechanism he devised was easy: With Mr. Kurz’s assist, Mr. Schmid recruited the conservative household minister, who had beforehand run a polling institute.
One of her former associates with shut hyperlinks to the house owners of Österreich was put in control of the polling. Mr. Kurz’s allies dictated the inquiries to ask. They then chosen favorable outcomes and sometimes tweaked them additional in help of Mr. Kurz’s management bid. Österreich was advised when and tips on how to write them up in return for normal placements of labeled advertisements.
There have been some early hiccups.
In June 2016, when Wolfgang and Helmuth Fellner, brothers whose household owns Österreich, didn't ship an article a couple of favorable ballot for Mr. Kurz, Mr. Schmid went ballistic: “We are really mad!!!! Mega mad.”
“I understand completely,” Wolfgang Fellner wrote again, “am now doing a full double page about the poll Wednesday. Okay?”
In December the identical 12 months, Mr. Schmid relayed some higher information to Mr. Kurz in a chat message. Another ballot had simply hit the headlines displaying the conservatives at a file low 18 %, additional undercutting Mr. Kurz’s rival.
“Thank you! Good poll,” Mr. Kurz replied.
Over time, the system was perfected. In January 2017, Österreich printed not only a ballot however an interview with the pollster, Sabine Beinschab, and used one among her quotes because the headline: The conservatives would “benefit from switching to Kurz.”
It was a line that had been fed to her by the praetorians.
“I told Beinschab yesterday what to say in the interview,” Johannes Frischmann, the spokesman of the finance minister and one other member of Mr. Kurz’s inside circle, reported again to Mr. Schmid, who replied with a clapping emoji.
“I’ve never gone as far as we’re going,” Mr. Schmid wrote. “Brilliant investment. Fellner is a capitalist. If you pay, things get done. I love it.”
By early May, the conservative chief had resigned and Mr. Kurz was swiftly designated his successor. Almost instantly his get together took off within the polls, and within the area of three weeks, catapulted Mr. Kurz into lead place.
It was round this time that Mr. Kurz additionally actively sought out conferences to stress extra important journalists. In June 2017, he had dinner with Mr. Brandstätter, then the editor in chief of Kurier, one of many broadsheet newspapers.
“Why don’t you like me?” Mr. Kurz had requested repeatedly, Mr. Brandstätter recalled in an interview.
“You have to decide whether you are my friend or my enemy,” Mr. Kurz had mentioned.
Mr. Kurz comfortably received the election in October 2017. He had run his marketing campaign on immigration limits and Austrian identification, giving a youthful veneer to a lot of the agenda of the far proper — after which inviting it into the federal government.
In the 17 months that adopted, he turned a blind eye to the various racist and antisemitic transgressions of his coalition companions. When journalists, like Mr. Brandstätter, reported on them, they received telephone calls from Mr. Kurz or a member of his expansive communications workforce.
“I got these calls all the time,” Mr. Brandstätter recalled. “Then he called the owners and then the owners called me.”
A 12 months after Mr. Kurz took workplace, his newspaper leaned on Mr. Brandstätter to maneuver out of his job and turn into writer as an alternative, a task with no editorial management. He is now a lawmaker for the libertarian Neos get together.
Meanwhile, prosecutors say, Mr. Schmid continued to pay for polls and positioned authorities advertisements with Österreich in return for favorable protection. From mid-2016 till the primary quarter of 2018, prosecutors mentioned, the worth of these advertisements got here to at the very least 1.1 million euros, or about $1.3 million.
Then in May 2019, one among Austria’s greatest postwar scandals broke. An outdated video surfaced displaying probably the most senior minister of the far-right Freedom Party in Mr. Kurz’s coalition promising authorities contracts to a would-be Russian investor in return for securing favorable protection in a well known Austrian tabloid, the Kronen Zeitung.
It turned out to be a setup. But the video made plain what the far proper was ready to do. What Austrians didn't know was that their conservative chancellor was truly doing it.
The investigation into the video would finally put prosecutors on the path of Mr. Kurz and his praetorians.
After the video scandal blew up, Mr. Kurz swiftly ended his coalition with the far proper.
“Enough is enough,” he mentioned. “What is grave and problematic is the idea of abusing power, of using Austrian taxpayers’ money and of course the understanding of the media landscape in our country.”
Mr. Kurz received re-election and this time entered a coalition with the progressive Greens, a change that provided him the prospect to take out the stain of his affiliation with the far proper.
What didn't change, nevertheless, was Mr. Kurz’s elaborate system of message management.
Last June, after the Austrian journal News wrote a important article about Mr. Kurz’s conservatives, the Finance Ministry canceled all of its labeled advertisements — not simply in News, however throughout all 15 titles owned by the VGN publishing group.
The loss was round 200,000 euros, mentioned Horst Pirker, VGN’s chief government.
“All governments tried to get the important media onside,” Mr. Pirker defined in an interview. “But Kurz took it to a new dimension.”
Mr. Kurz, who stays the conservative get together chief, remains to be hoping to return as chancellor. He has lashed out on the justice system, accusing prosecutors of being politically motivated. Lawmakers loyal to him converse of “red cells” and “leftist networks,” a kind of “deep state” preventing conservatism.
“It’s straight out of the illiberal playbook,” mentioned Peter Pilz, the creator of “The Kurz Regime,” a lately printed ebook. “He is badly damaged and unlikely to recover. But if he does, we should all worry.”
