Austria's Nationalist Vice Chancellor Quits Over Video Scandal
By Boris Groendahl
May 18, 2019, 4:02 AM EDT Updated on May 18, 2019, 7:58 AM EDT
Full story at Bloomberg Austria may be headed for snap elections after the center-right government stumbled over a video showing its deputy leader promising government contracts in return for campaign funding.
The ball is in the court of conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz after Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, from the nationalist Freedom Party, stepped down on Saturday, calling his own actions “dumb†and “embarrassing.†Kurz is set to give a statement later in the day. ...
The turmoil is hitting Austria a week before European Parliament elections. Polls suggest Kurz’s party will win the most votes in Austria ahead of the Social Democrats. Polls before the latest turn of events suggested Strache’s Freedom Party would take four of Austria’s 18 seats in the European chamber.
The footage from a 2017 meeting in Ibiza with a woman claiming to be the niece of a Russian oligarch was obtained by German publications Der Spiegel and Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Spiegel didn’t disclose how it obtained the video and said it doesn’t know the motives of the people who made it. ...