By Bond Robertson Comments Expresses the opinion of the author.
It exploded like a bomb when the Chancellor took off his hat in October and left. The premiership was left to the foreign minister, but Kurz himself wanted to continue as party leader and ÖVP leader in Parliament.
Many claimed that he only took a step to the side, so that Alexander Schallenberg could take care of the chancellor’s excrement while Sebastian Kurz had time to clean up his affairs with the police and prosecutors.
The man is accused of corruption and abuse of power, the evidence abounds – and the potential for indictment is serious.
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the president leaves
Yesterday morning, Sebastian Kurz took the podium in Vienna and announced that he was resigning from all his political positions. He said it was the birth of his son on Sunday that made the 35-year-old decide to change his lifestyle.
The past few years have been wonderful. He became foreign minister when he was 24, foreign minister at 27 and chancellor when he turned 31. Every morning he would get up early to tackle all the urgent tasks that were waiting for him. Yes, it is clear that sometimes he got injured due to making a wrong decision. But overall, Kurtz believes he can be more than proud of his efforts for the motherland.
“I am neither a saint nor a criminal,” said Sebastian Kurz rudely – he was in Norway on a training session for his colleagues who have to explain a passenger apartment.
He stressed his innocence and emphasized that all the accusations would be refuted – only when the case was brought to court. (He is looking forward.)
The chancellor is leaving as well
A few hours after Kurtz finished, it was Alexander Schallenberg’s turn to visit the microphones to announce his resignation as chancellor. He didn’t really intend to stay in office for very long, and now – after two months as head of government – he predicted that the Federal Chancellor should also be head of the party. And if there’s something Alexander Schallenberg doesn’t want, it’s just something.
Now the alarm went off in earnest.
One would prefer to be a diaper changer and the other would not be the chairman of the board at any cost. This is a gurgle. Commentators are already mixed with speculation about what might have happened behind the scenes.
Do former and current advisors know of more disasters soon? Could there be more legal inconvenience – investigating things no one knew about until now? New and strange discoveries for Sebastian Kurtz and the gang around him?
Here you can read more of Asbjørn Svarstad’s comments
Bought a good review
Snowballs began to roll when the attorney general in charge of anti-corruption received more than 300,000 chat messages from 2016 between Kurtz and a narrower circle of his accomplices. One of them was on the budget in the Ministry of Justice, and therefore could control the state’s spending on the purchase of advertising space in various media.
He and two others agreed with the brothers behind Österreich that their media group would receive large sums of money for advertising. In turn, the magazine ensured regular reporting to put Kurtz in a favorable light for voters. It was also agreed that the ministry would bear the costs of forged opinion polls that were published in the group’s various media. Of course, they showed that Sebastian Kurz’s popularity had waned completely – and they were also used as an excuse to make him head of the party.
From being a distinctly dark blue and conservative party – with plenty of newcomers and white men at its head – he has turned it into a turquoise and youthful coors party with himself as a shining teacher. Nobody does it better.
At first he became the counselor himself. Later, he made sure that others in the inner circle around him were rewarded with fat legs in the form of tailor-made jobs with high wages and great strength.
Evidence handed over
One of them managed to store all the messages, in which various twists and turns were agreed, in an electronic diary that the detective found during a search of his house. Since then, Austrian media have gassed in excerpts from the Prime Minister’s words, to put it mildly, new vocabulary – as well as his strained relationship with regulations and paragraphs.
Although all party members declared their support for Sebastian Kurz, the alleged left-wing lawyers blamed honest and hardworking political persecution and hoped that the clean-shaven head of the party would return soon after he had been acquitted and shaved. Soon the screeching began.
More and more volumes across the country reported an emerging uprising in the electorate. Consider whether the allegations are true – imagine an Austrian court finding the president guilty – yes, until you send him to prison. Would it be wise to think of a fresh start – a future complete without Sebastian Kurz?
Read also: Austrian wolf in sheep’s clothing?
voter escape
At the same time, opinion polls show that three-quarters of Austrians have lost faith in the aura of the miracle is real – and are tired of politicians promising forests of gold and green – but are using their positions to abuse power and pressure the system for money.
Kurz’s first government was a coalition with the right-wing populist Freedom Party, which was dissolved after he posted footage of the party leader drunk with the niece of the Russian oligarch. Later, he formed a new coalition with the Green Party.
His method has always been to divide and conquer. No post-war chancellor, like Kurz, has succeeded in polarizing Austrian society more forcefully. It divides the political landscape into friends and foes – the latter must be fought by all means.
The state of advertising may be the most dangerous for Sebastian Kurz.
If convicted, there is talk of gross corruption – as well as abuse of power, false interpretation and a few other issues. This way he doesn’t get away with a big fine or a few hours of community service.
Counting?
No one doubts that Kurz is rarely a skilled politician in power and also an oratorical gift. Critics claim that he also has a breath of alpine size and that there can be no doubt that Sebastian Kurz is leaving politics for good – because in recent months the prodigy has come under criticism of a kind he has never felt before. your body.
Read more of the Norwegian discussion here
In five years, he will be forty, and may have put his successor to the sanction of “political judgment” – ready to take back the chancellor’s office in Vienna. Perhaps there are not many Austrians who would put their money today on such a development.
But who knows? This is after all the country of the sound of music. So anything is possible.