FILE PHOTO: Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz delivers a statement after the swearing-in ceremony of the new ministers in Vienna, Austria May 22, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
May 27, 2019
By Kirsti Knolle and Francois Murphy
VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria’s parliament appeared all but certain to sack Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Monday after lawmakers from the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) agreed to support a motion of no-confidence in his caretaker government.
Kurz’s conservatives came out on top in Sunday’s European Parliament election, a week after a video sting scandal prompted far-right Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache to step down and Kurz to scrap the coalition between their parties.
FPO leader Strache resigned from all his political posts after the footage, which appeared to show him discussing fixing government contracts, was published by two German media outlets.
Kurz hopes to use the caretaker administration as a springboard for re-election, presenting himself as more of a victim of the political crisis set off by the video than an enabler of it who brought the far right to power.
But with the next parliamentary election expected in September, opposition parties say Kurz must share the blame.
Two no-confidence motions, one against Kurz and the other against both him and his government, are planned in parliament on Monday.
Meeting before a debate due to begin at 1 p.m., FPO lawmakers unanimously agreed to support the latter motion, being submitted by the Social Democrats (SPO), FPO deputy Walter Rauch told reporters. Other FPO lawmakers confirmed the decision.
The SPO have 52 seats and the FPO 51 in the 183-seat lower house of parliament, easily giving them in combination the majority required for the motion to pass. Austria’s president would then have to nominate a new chancellor to put together a caretaker government able to last until the next election.
While lawmakers decided in the morning how they would vote in the afternoon session, Vienna prosecutors said they were investigating “in multiple directions” in relation to the sting video, but declined to provide further details.
In the European elections, voters gave Kurz’s People’s Party (OVP) a larger share of support than in Austria’s parliamentary election of 2017.
“Parliament will have its say on Monday,” Kurz said on Facebook, describing the other parties’ behavior as a “game of revenge”.
“But at the end of the day the people will decide, namely in September,” he added.
(Additional reporting by Tassilo Hummel in Berlin; Editing by Madeline Chambers and John Stonestreet)
