Who rules Austria?

I've been asking myself  a fundamental question for a long time: Who dominates policy in Austria? Is it the ruling parties or the opposition parties? Recently I got the answer: It's the 'Krone'!

Ever since the results of the elections for the European parliament were announced all of Europe learned that neither the social democrats or the Austrian conservative party nor the greens, the freedom party or any other political party rules Austria. It's not the president or the chancellor who is in the driver's seat and it's not any religious leader (thankfully!) who calls the tune. But who else?

It's Hans Dichand who is in power with his tabloid 'Kronen Zeitung'. There is no other explanation for the rise of H.P. Martin at the EU elections. And there is no other explanation for the phenomenon that Erwin Pröll resounds throughout the land as potential candidate for the presidency elections in 2010. Recent surveys show that he would have good chances as serious contender of Heinz Fischer. But what led to this potential career advancement of Erwin Pröll? The answer is simple: It's just because one man, namely Hans Dichand, said that he would 'wish' Joseph Pröll to be chancellor and Erwin Pröll president of Austria. In general this would not be a problem but in fact people in Austria believe what's been written in the Krone with it's more than 40% media coverage. So it's a simple task to predict the chances of Pröll to be the next president of Austria now that his election campaign has started one year prior the elections take place.

But let's have a deeper look at the possible consequences of the political power of the Krone. Assumed this screwy publisher Hans Dichand becomes totally insane and wants to support people like H.C. (for the local elections in Vienna for instance) or Josef Bucher... Against this background the term 'media power' gets a gloomy meaning.