Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz ousted in no-confidence vote
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/27/austrian-chancellor-sebastian-kurz-ousted-no-confidence-vote/
Sebastian Kurz was voted out of office as Austrian chancellor on Monday, less than 24 hours after his party won a resounding victory in the European elections.
Mr Kurz’s government lost a confidence vote in the Austrian parliament following the collapse of his coalition with the far-Right Freedom Party (FPÖ).
President Alexander Van der Bellen will now appoint a caretaker government until elections scheduled for September.
Mr Kurz is the first postwar Austrian chancellor to lose a confidence vote, but he is unlikely to be out of power for long.
His Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) will be strong favourites in September, after coming first with a projected 35 per cent in the European elections, more than 10 per cent clear of their closest rivals.
Hailed as the future of European conservatism when he became the world’s youngest leader in 2017 at the age of 31, Mr Kurz was always going to be vulnerable after ending his coalition with the Freedom Party over a corruption scandal just over a week ago.
He attempted to continue at the head of a minority government, but his former coalition partners joined forces with the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPÖ) to vote him out of power.
Mr Kurz accused his opponents of “playing revenge games” ahead of the vote, and warned: “At the end of the day the people will decide”.
His decision to form a coalition with the Freedom Party in 2017 was widely seen as a model for how to tame the populist Right. But it turned toxic when a video emerged of Heinz-Christian Strache, the Freedom Party leader, offering government contracts to a woman posing as a Russian oligarch in exchange for political and financial help. Mr Strache denies doing anything illegal.
“It was clear to me that meant the end of the coalition,” Mr Kurz told MPs as he defended his government’s record on Monday.
He attempted to form a caretaker cabinet with President van der Bellen’s backing, appointing non-partisan technocrats to fill the vacant ministries, but the other parties refused to accept it.
For the Social Democrats, Mr Kurz’s closest rivals, the calculation was whether to allow him to fight September’s election as an incumbent, or risk angering voters by forcing out a popular chancellor.
By choosing the latter they have laid down the gauntlet. After his party’s strong showing in the European elections, Mr Kurz will hope he can profit from the Freedom Party’s struggles and pick up enough votes to form a coalition with a minor party.
But the Freedom Party’s vote held up much better in the European elections than expected after Mr Strache was forced to resign in disgrace. It was projected to come third with 17 per cent, just 2 per cent less than in 2014.
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