AUSTRIA: PARTIES PREVENT KAMPL FROM ASSUMING

UNCLAS VIENNA 001924

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE FOR EUR/AGS AND EUR/OHI

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KNAR PHUM PGOV AU
SUBJECT: AUSTRIA: PARTIES PREVENT KAMPL FROM ASSUMING
CHAIR OF UPPER HOUSE

REF: VIENNA 1484

THIS MESSAGE IS SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED.


1. (SBU) On June 8, all parties in Austria's parliament
agreed on a strategy to prevent a controversial
nationalist from becoming president of the Upper House as
of July 1. The deputy, Siegfried Kampl, unleashed a
storm of protest in April when he complained of "brutal
persecution" of Nazis after World War II. At first,
Kampl agreed to resign his seat, but he later retracted
the offer. As a result, a constitutional amendment
became necessary in order to avoid the spectacle of Kampl
wielding the gavel in one of Parliament's two chambers.
With the backing of all parties, the amendment passed the
Lower House unanimously, with just one abstention.


2. (SBU) The Upper House will have to approve the law,
which will then go to President Heinz Fischer on June 26.
Fischer has already announced he will sign it. The
constitutional change will allow state legislatures to
change the rank-order of their deputies to the Upper
House. This ranking determines who will assume the
presidency of the chamber (which rotates among the states
every half year). At its next session from June 28-30,
the Carinthian state legislature will move another deputy
to first position above Kampl, enabling him, rather than
Kampl, to preside over the Upper House starting July 1.


3. (SBU) Another nationalist figure in the Upper House,
John Gudenus, added fuel to the fire by amplifying on his
previous comments questioning the existence of Nazi gas
chambers. Gudenus specified that there had been "no gas
chambers in the Third Reich, but in Poland." The Public
Prosecutor's office subsequently began a new criminal
investigation against Gudenus for violation of Austrian
laws prohibiting Holocaust denial.


4. (SBU) COMMENT: Kampl and Gudenus's statements were
broadly unacceptable in Austria, even among members of
the right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) and the Alliance
Future Austria (BZO). Their refusal to recant raised a
storm of public protest from across the political
spectrum, which forced the two deputies to resign their
party memberships and leave the combined FPO-BZO
parliamentary caucus. The entire political leadership of
Austria called for them also to surrender their mandates
as members of the Upper House -- which they so far have
refused to do. However, should he refuse to step down
voluntarily, Gudenus will lose his seat in the Upper
House after Vienna state elections in fall 2005. It is
clear his party will not renominate him.

BROWN