The chaos days of the Graz FPÖ are entering the next round: On Tuesday morning it was announced that the state FPÖ would expel the head of the Graz City Council Club, Alexis Pascuttini. In the afternoon Pascuttini appeared before the press together with party leader Claudia Schönbacher from Graz. Schönbacher also expects to be kicked out of the game.
“It’s very complicated,” says club boss Pascuttini right at the beginning, who describes the situation well. Events have been happening since it was announced last year that the former club director of the FPÖ of Graz, Matthias Eder, would have embezzled 700,000 euros. Ex-tips Mario Eustacchio and Armin Sippel then resigned, the investigation is still ongoing. More than a million euros have “disappeared” according to a March audit report.
The next blow came at the end of September: municipal councilor Roland Lohr was expelled from the party. During the 2021 financial audit, documents emerged suggesting “criminal relevance”. Pascuttini substantiated the allegations today: Lohr is said to have been a cashier at one of the clubs that received a lot of money.
“We don’t know what he knows”
“We confronted him that we had to report it,” Pascuttini explains. But Lohr did not want to turn himself in to the police, so Pascuttini and councilor Claudia Schönbacher did. “We don’t know what Lohr knows,” Pascuttini says. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
On September 21, Roland Lohr was expelled from the town festival.
Clash between state party and city party
And that’s when the hot state party conflict surrounding Mario Kunasek and Stefan Hermann begins. “On Monday, the order came that Lohr would be reinstated. In the meantime, however, he is a suspect in the proceedings and his house has been searched,” says Pascuttini. In the club, the Graz FPÖ voted anonymously: four votes against, one in favour.
Put Pascuttini off the party himself
On Tuesday, Pascuttini finally heard that he himself had been expelled from the FPÖ. State Party Secretary Hermann explained in a broadcast: “The reason for this was the repeated failure to implement binding resolutions by the state party board.” He was “surprised” by this, Pascuttini says.
The suspended prisoner now announces that he will appeal to the state party court. Pascuttini remains club president of the Graz FPÖ faction. “As a freethinker without being a member of the FPÖ.”
Does he think that representatives of the state party could also be involved in the scandal? “I can’t say that.”
Schönbacher also fears being excluded from the party
The boss of FPÖ Graz stood resolutely next to her young colleagues on Tuesday. “It is incomprehensible to me how one can insist on someone who is clearly not telling the truth,” she tells Lohr in the direction of the state party.
Schönbacher now also expects to be excluded from the party. “Then we both go to party court.” However, Schönbacher could not be nominated as party leader of the Grazer Blauen at Friday’s city party congress. There she actually wants to assert herself against a vote of no confidence…
Source: Krone
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