Sebastian Kurz is 35 years old and already a former chancellor of Austria – twice. In May 2019, amid the fallout from the Ibiza corruption affair, Kurz’s government was the first in the history of the postwar Second Republic to fall in parliament to a motion of no confidence. On Saturday evening, faced with the prospect of a second such humiliation, Kurz announced his intention to step aside as chancellor in favour of foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg.
The fall was swift. On Wednesday morning, anti-corruption authorities (WKStA) conducted searches of the federal chancellery and the headquarters of Kurz’s conservative People’s Party (ÖVP). The WKStA suspects that in 2016, when Kurz was foreign minister, he and close associates schemed to use state funds to pay for opinion polling favourable to Kurz, which was then published in the friendly freesheet Österreich. The paper also happens to be in receipt of a generous amount of government advertising and public service announcements relative to its readership.
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