Leader Frank Stronach Founder Frank Stronach | Chairman Robert Lugar Founded 27 September 2012 | |
 | ||
Headquarters Magna Straße 1
2522 Oberwaltersdorf
Lower Austria Ideology Euroscepticism
Economic liberalism
Populism | ||
The Team Stronach, full name Team Stronach for Austria (German: Team Stronach für Österreich), is a Eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in Austria founded by and named after Austrian-Canadian businessman Frank Stronach.
Contents
History
The new party was registered on 25 September 2012, and was launched two days later.
In a Gallup poll in August 2012, it received 8% of the vote. Five MPs – Gerhard Köfer of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), Elisabeth Kaufmann-Bruckberger and Christoph Hagen of the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), and independents Robert Lugar and Erich Tadler – have agreed to join the party.
Parties with at least three seats are automatically qualified to run in the forthcoming federal election.
The party name, programme, and logo were decided in early September 2012. Köfer has been named as the party's leading candidate for the 2013 state election in Carinthia. In September's Gallup poll, it received 10% of the vote.
At the party's campaign launch for the 2013 federal election, the party unveiled a political advertisement featuring personal endorsements for Stronach from Bill Clinton and Larry King. By this time, the party polled between 10% and 12%. After the defection of a fifth MP, Stefan Markowitz, Team Stronach was given official party status in the National Council: giving the party €1.4m of state funding and places on parliamentary committees.
The party won 11% of the vote in the March 2013 state election in Carinthia, only narrowly falling behind The Greens and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). On the same day, Team Stronach won 10% of the vote in the Lower Austria state election, in third place. The result in Lower Austria gave Team Stronach its first seat in the Federal Council, held by Gerald Zelina.
On 29 September 2013 Team Stronach participated for the first time in the elections for the Austrian National Parliament. According to preliminary results Team Stronach got 5.8% of the votes won 11 seats and will be the fifth largest party in the new Austrian parliament.
The party did not contest the 2014 European parliamentary election.
Since the election the party has fallen considerably in the polls. On 3 June 2015, two Stronach members of parliament defected to the ÖVP, leaving the party with nine deputies.
Ideology
Team Stronach supports Austria leaving the Euro currency and introducing an Austrian Euro instead. Although an advisor of Team Stronach suggested later on in an interview with the Austrian economic news magazine "Format" they want to keep the Euro but additionally introduce national currencies.
Unlike some other right-wing anti-Euro parties, Stronach is not as anti-immigration as themselves.
The party advocates cutting bureaucracy and instituting a 25% flat-rate income tax.
Team Stronach supports ending conscription and introducing an all-volunteer army.
Stronach supports democratic reform, including the use of primary elections.