Downfall
How a scandal involving sexed-up opinion polling billed to the finance ministry backed Sebastian Kurz into resigning the chancellorship on Saturday evening
Servus!
On Saturday evening, Sebastian Kurz cut into the 7.30pm evening news to announce his intention to resign as chancellor. “I want to make room to break the deadlock, prevent chaos, and ensure stability,” he told the Austrian people, claiming: “My country is more important to me than myself.” Kurz handed in his resignation to president Alexander Van der Bellen on Monday morning; by lunchtime, he had been formally relieved of his duties and Alexander Schallenberg, once foreign minister, sworn in as chancellor.
How did we get here? Kurz’s downfall began on Wednesday morning—hours before you received the last edition of this newsletter—when Austria’s anti-corruption authorities, the WKStA, having obtained permission from the courts, carried out searches of the federal chancellery and the headquarters of Kurz’s People’s Party (ÖVP), an event without precedent in the history of the postwar Second Republic. Investigators seized smartphones during the searches and several advisors close to Kurz were said to be under suspicion.
The WKStA suspected the following. In 2016, Sebastian Kurz was foreign minister in the grand coalition in which the ÖVP’s Reinhold Mitterlehner was vice-chancellor. The party was down in the dumps, projected to finish third in the next parliamentary elections. As part of “Project Ballhausplatz”—Kurz’s reported masterplan to take over the ÖVP—the WKStA believes Kurz and figures close to him either planned or had knowledge of a plan to use finance ministry funds to pay for sexed-up opinion polling favorable to Kurz which was then published by Österreich, a friendly tabloid freesheet.
Published by media mogul Wolfgang Fellner, Österreich happens to receive generous amounts of government advertising relative to its readership. Kurz denied the allegations and continues to believe they are false. He has not been charged and the presumption of innocence applies. On Wednesday night, Kurz appeared on the 10.00pm news, and in an interview with anchor Martin Thür vigorously protested his innocence while flooding the zone as to cast doubt on the very nature of the allegations.
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Kurz’s coalition partner, the Greens, first learnt of the searches via the media. The day after, on Thursday morning, vice-chancellor Werner Kogler first stated the allegations called Kurz’s ability to carry out his job into question and indicated his willingness to speak to all parties in parliament about the best way forward. In the afternoon, it was reported parliament would reconvene Tuesday with a possible vote of no confidence in Kurz on the table. President Van der Bellen began to hold meetings with the heads of Austria’s political parties in search of a way out of this “crisis of government.”
Kurz was unmoved. Shortly before his meeting with the president, he declared his intention to fight the allegations, lean on the presumption of innocence, and continue his party's cooperation with the Greens. He was aided by his cabinet ministers in his party who all signed a statement declaring the ÖVP would only participate in a coalition with the Greens if Kurz stayed. Should Kurz be forced out, they would resign en masse. The ÖVP governors of Vorarlberg, Tyrol, Salzburg, Upper Austria, Styria, and Lower Austria also committed themselves to Kurz.
But unmoved too were the Greens. On Friday morning, they doubled down on their original position: either Kurz goes or we might. The Greens entered into talks with the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) on Friday morning and held discussions with the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and liberal NEOS in the afternoon. Rumors of a possible four-party coalition against the ÖVP or a left-liberal minority government backed by the FPÖ were abound. Meanwhile, new revelations emerged including that, back in 2016, foreign minister Kurz had allegedly asked a senior official in the finance ministry to try and “hold up” his own government’s plans to spend €1.2 billion on after school care.
Kurz was shook. On Friday night, he gatecrashed the evening news with a hastily-called press conference in which he again professed his innocence and stressed his ability to carry out his job while stating he accepted a situation in which an alternative majority to his coalition could be found. He was trying to get the jump on his own vice-chancellor, Kogler have already scheduled a statement for 7.30 that night. After Kurz spoke, Kogler addressed journalists outside his party’s offices, telling the ÖVP again: find a new chancellor or we’ll be forced to seek other options.
For more on Sebastian Kurz’s resignation and Austria’s crisis of government, please see my piece, ‘Why Sebastian Kurz will now be Austria’s “shadow chancellor”’ in the New Statesman.
If Kurz is to be believed, what happened next was his call and his alone: he himself decided on Friday night into Saturday morning that the writing was on the wall. But according to reports, what may have actually happened was that the tide turned against Kurz within his own party—at least at the state level. On Saturday morning, the ÖVP’s state governors met via telephone, determined that given the allegations Kurz couldn’t carry on as chancellor, and called him at midday proposing he step aside in favor of Schallenberg.
Kurz scheduled another 7.30pm press conference, this time for Saturday evening. While announcing his resignation and suggestion that Schallenberg take up the chancellorship, he outlined his plans for the future. Kurz would retain the party chairmanship (which he captured in May 2017) and return to parliament, taking up a seat in the front row in the role of parliamentary party chair. Its current occupant, August Wöginger, it would become clear, would become Kurz’s first deputy, doing the leg work of organising parliamentary business and whipping MPs into line. On Monday, the parliamentary party unanimously voted Kurz its chair; he plans to return to parliament Thursday.
Kurz’s resignation ended Austria’s crisis of government. Shortly after his press conference, vice-chancellor Kogler welcomed Kurz’s move as the “right step” for the future of the coalition and outlined plans to meet with Schallenberg on Sunday morning. The coalition’s work—including passing the budget and implementing its ‘eco-social’ tax reform plan—could continue. For now, at least.
Bis bald!