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June 30th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
“I like our prince, we need him here,” said a stout matron in a shop
selling stamps. “Liechtenstein would be nothing without him.”
The cause of the prince’s threat to leave is a proposal to cut his power by
ending his automatic veto over new legislation.
The campaign, in the tiny and usually tranquil nation, has been divisive and
sometimes bad-tempered, and could result in the biggest change to come to
Liechtenstein in decades.
Nothing so dramatic as politics usually happens in the 15-mile long
micro-nation, a couple of mountain ranges and a stretch of river valley
sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria which the prince’s ancestors
purchased in 1712. To the outside world it is known mainly to
stamp-collectors and tax-avoiders, few of whom could place it on a map. Some
may not even realise it is a real place.
Liechtenstein is the second-richest nation on the planet after Monaco, with an
average per capita income of £85,000 and hundreds of millionaires. So nobody
expects the prince’s 36,000 subjects to grab pitchforks and rampage out of
their large neat chalets, with swimming pools and Mercedes limousines parked
in the driveways.
Instead a committee of four sober professionals, all in their fifties and
sixties, organised a referendum. Ditching the veto would spell the end of
one of Europe’s last remnants of feudalism and the coming of a true
democracy, they argue, and ensure a monarchy fit for the 21st century.
“With these threats to leave he can influence many people. It is
surprising how deep these fears run – it’s like daddy threatening to abandon
a misbehaving child,” said Sigvard Wohlwend, 43, the main spokesman for
the campaign.
He expects the vote to be close, but said he was optimistic, and he said he
did not believe the prince would ever quit Vaduz.
“Why should he give up his enormous privileges?” he said. “He
can direct policies that benefit the princely family and its interests. He
pays no taxes. He saves millions of francs a year in wealth taxes.”
Prince Alois’ father, Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, 67, is officially
head of state but transferred sovereignty with all his powers to his eldest
son in 2004.
Last year Prince Alois, a devout Roman Catholic, scuppered a referendum on
abortion weeks before it was held by declaring he would veto a change in the
law, so that many who wanted change concluded there was no point in their
voting. The principality is one of the last places in Europe where abortion
is illegal, forcing women to travel secretly to Switzerland and Austria to
terminate unwanted pregnancies. In theory, they could be jailed if the
authorities learn what they have done.
Many Liechtensteiners feel deeply uncomfortable with this law, and the
reformers were confident they would win – until the prince intervened. The
eventual result of the vote was 51.5 per cent to 48.5 to keep abortion
illegal.
After that some citizens decided it was time to cut their ruler down to size.
Mr Wohlwend believes the prince is the most powerful leader west of Budapest,
able to blackball new judges, pardon criminals, and steer foreign policy –
his state is a member of the United Nations and World Trade Association. He
cannot be removed and can even sack the government, and he commands fierce
devotion.
“If the prince came out tomorrow and said the sky is pink, I believe 15
to 20 per cent of the population would agree with him,” Mr Wohlwend
said with a sigh.
Liechtensteiners like their prince, who is 43, because he is personally
charming and they credit his family for ensuring their enviable prosperity
and stability. Most of their grandfathers lived in poverty, before they hit
on the idea of starting banks for foreigners.
The royal family are the descendants of Austrian noblemen, related to the
Habsburgs, and today used to mingling with billionaires and statesmen at
home and abroad. Their little fiefdom was a backwater for centuries,
abolishing serfdom in 1808, only declaring a constitutional monarchy in
1921, and not bringing in votes for women until 1984.
Before that, in the 17th century, Liechtenstein was notorious throughout
Europe as the “witch country”, and one of the prince’s
predecessors was known for dancing to loud music to drown out the screams of
accused women being tortured in the castle dungeons below.
Prince Alois attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and was briefly
in the Coldstream Guards in Hong Kong before working in the City of London
to learn the ropes of the family business, banking. He married Sophie
Elisabeth Marie Gabrielle, a German duchess and former student of history
and English literature in 1994, and their children – three sons and a
daughter – are aged from 11 to 16.
He is immensely wealthy. His family owns LGT, the biggest of the
principality’s 16 banks and a favoured place for the international wealthy
to keep their money out of the clutches of their nations’ tax authorities.
The family’s image has been tarnished since the 2008 financial crash, as
foreign governments in need of revenue started to look harder at
Liechtenstein’s role as a tax haven. A disgruntled IT worker stole a pile of
computer discs with details of thousands of bank accounts, embarrassing the
prince and the principality’s sober, besuited bankers, who have had to
launch a public relations campaign to show how they are cleaning up their
act. Its banking sector is still highly secretive, although the nation is
one of the few places in Europe where bankers are still popular. The
principality has gradually opened up its banking sector to scrutiny and
foreign tax inspectors, under pressure from its neighbours.
None of this damaged has the prince’s prestige with the principality’s
royalists. Cars bear stickers saying “For God, Prince and Fatherland”,
and royalists have posted loyal video messages in a Facebook campaign.
“The prince is like a father to us, it is a spiritual thing,” said
Markus Burgler, 51, a civil servant who has started an internet support
campaign. He was confident that the referendum proposal would be comfortably
defeated.
“You British have your Queen, so you must understand why we support our
prince,” he said.
He wholeheartedly backs the prince’s unbending position and deferentially
describes the Crown Prince’s threats to step down from his duties as a
matter of royal “opinion”. He said: “We are prosperous under
him, he is a guardian who ensures stability.
“England has Big Ben, France has the Eiffel Tower, we have a prince. He
is what makes us Liechtenstein.”
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