Sebastian Kurz, Austrian Leader, Is Ousted in No-Confidence Vote

More insight on the topic: The normal procedure of the government under Kurz' leadership was to decide on bills, without making them available to parliament (~ USA-congress). Major reforms of this government conflicted with the Austrian constitution before parliament got through legal trouble to delay the vote and critique the bills, which were changed only then, while other reforms remained in conflict with the Constitution. (In Austria the difinitve legal authority on Constitution-law takes around 4 years to come to conclusion, all while the law must be in effect). Kurz backed a far right member of his government-team who made a police squad responsible for drug&street crimes which is known for being sympathetic to the far right party, raid Austria's secret service and take all files without the supervision of judges or similar legal authorities. This lead to many european secret services cutting ties to the Austrian secret service, as it is now widely regarded as unsafe for cooperation. The smaller party of the coalition which Kurz chiefs, is the far right party of Austria who has close ties to organisations that still used song-books with original nazi-songtexts singing about killing another million of jews with gas The Technocrats of Kurz's choice each were supposed to get supervised by 2 members of Kurz's party, making a party voted for by 30% control the whole government. I think, one should decide for himself if ousting Kurz leads to less stability for Austria.

Congratulations to Austria for rejecting Mr. Kurz and his politics of fear and hatred. I’m just surprised that it took the “revelation” of something anyone who’s paying even remote attention already knew: the xenophobic, “populist,” fascist-leaning politicians grabbing power (or at least trying) throughout the western world are funded by Vladimir Putin, because he knows that given the chance, they will destroy their countries—something he has been frustratingly unable to do on his own.

Austria needs to be seen in context, the unique country never pushed to confront its role in WW II and the Holocaust because of its Cold War role. Few Austrians today have direct experience with why transnational entities and relationships were created in the first place, beginning with the coal and steel community and NATO, eventually creating the European Union: the absolute horror and devastation of WW II and the Holocaust. Over the decades the Euro-elites, not just Austria's, not only lost touch with their own nationals but also did not understand how the War became history rather than a visceral reality. When the Balkan wars erupted, Europe could not figure out how to cope. That should have served as a wake-up call that something was fundamentally amiss with the European project. Sadly, the leaders effectively blew the opportunity. Then, confusing aspiration with reality, Eastern European states with no traditions of democracy or liberal values (in the traditional sense), were brought in as institutional equals. Thus, when terrorism, mass migration, and the Euro crisis all hit, European leadership was unprepared and could not cope in a collective manner. Needed now is more than a simple reforming of European institutions. Needed is the creation of a new transnational, European narrative to replace the no longer viable WW II narrative. Unless people can be persuaded to think European, centrifugal forces will destroy one of the 20th century's greatest accomplishments.

Kurz was a sockpuppet of his corporate sponsors who avoided public debate and appeared to be missing from his office most of the time. He is hyped by the tabloids and functioned as a hollow shell his followers could project on whatever they wanted to see in him. The vote share of his party can be explained by the social democrats failure to act against immigration and therefore the spread of Islam.

The Austrian republic was created after World War I, not World War II.

LOL Make Austria Great Again. If the peoples of what used to be the Austrian-Hungarian Empire had any sense, they would talk about some sort of co-operation/ alliance.

There is no surprise here: "It has been a turbulent week for Austrian politics. Mr. Kurz’s coalition government with the far-right Freedom Party collapsed after the party’s leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, resigned as vice chancellor when a video emerged that showed him promising government contracts to a woman claiming to be a wealthy Russian in exchange for financial support." The willingness of Strache to exchange government contracts for Russian black money is what characterizes the current Trump administration in the U.S. Trump's lack of transparency and willingness to do everything in his power to cover up his past business dealings, taxes, and bury the Mueller report by directing AG Barr is all evidence of his corruption and criminality. Trump flaunts the rule of law, dismisses Congress, and gladly supports only those GOP members who are complicit in his destructive dismantling of democracy. The American people, the GOP, and Democratic leadership need to wake up and stand up.

This shows how dark money from Russian Oligarchs is corrupting European conservative parties. Even though it was a a political setup the evidence is quite compelling. This could be a reason that the Trump organization and Trump himself are fearful of these discoveries through Deutsche Bank records and his exposure which will implicate him and some possible criminal activity.

Ever since this story first broke in German SPIEGEL magazine it was only a matter of time before it would all land back in Herr Kurz's lap, even though he took the preemptive steps of distancing himself from this scandal as quickly as possible. But not even Austria's president Alexander Van der Bellen could shield him from the inevitable fact that the disgraced Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and other FPÖ cabinet members were political poison -- especially with this all happening so close to the European Parlament elections. And now Austria, like just about every other country in the E.U. has to reckon with a rising populist movement and right-wing parties that threaten to drag them back into the not-too-distant past.

Hi! I am from Austria. Austria is not in chaos. It's a strong evidence for a working democracy: The governing conservative chancellor attempted to utilize a severe political scandal to consolidate power and bring a unilateral one-party government on track — without approval of/coordination with the parliament and without popular vote . His consequent ousting by a broad coalition in the parliament (despite the unpopularity of such a move) is a testament that parliamentary oversight, constitutional framework and presidential guidance do work. It is a testament to a refusal to a political style that is purely oriented on consolidation of power with disregard of democratic ethics and ideals. This is a significant contrast to the bi-partisan power-focussed grid-lock here in the US. To be honest, after all that grid-lock in the US and the chaotic situation in UK: It's refreshing to see lived parliamentarism that works in face of (political) crisis.

Hello from Vienna, Austria! Many of us are happy that the whole government is gone finally. We don´t think there is a crisis, because we have a very good President in control. Our constitution states that the majority of our democratically directly elected Parliament has the right to remove the government (not directly elected). That´s what just happened for the first time in Austria´s history. A victory of democracy. Now, why are many Austrians happy? Because this chancellor (he may get elected again) did not bring stability and prosper, but turned against the social system, NGOs, poorer people and minorities instead. Kurz´ so-called "movement" does not stand for conservative policies, but for right populist policies, paving the way for extreme right politicians in positions of power. An interior minister wanting to ride horses, portraying in uniform, restlessly chasing every critical journalist. A majority of Austrians was afraid of the interior ministry. Western secret services cut ties to the Austrian secret service because of the extreme right ties´ to the Russians (security concerns). All this could have been avoided without Kurz. Maybe Austrians will elect Kurz again into office, but we hope our relation with the international community will strenghten anyway.

We are a very dangerous time in the world when common ordinary people with gripes and grievances, real and imagined, have taken to believing that there are actual political solutions to their problems that should be taken by leaders. It never used to be this way.

This is not a good time. The EU's values are under assault from opportunists with fascist leanings; and once again Austria is at the center; and I have an uneasy feeling that the western world is stumbling toward a conflagration.

It may simply be my perception, but since 2008 (or thereabouts) Russia seems to have begun a serious effort to expand its influence international influence through bribery and coercion. I'd love to read a comprehensive and concise overview of what kind of long-game the state (and the businesses bound up with it) is playing and how this informs their strategy.

should have happened a long time ago.

VIENNA (Wien) - not Berlin! Berlin is the capital of Germany. Vienna is the capital of Austria.

While this has not happened before, I doubt that it qualifies for political "chaos" as mentioned in the first paragraph. Austria is a very stable central European country, and it will be one tomorrow.

Not a surprise. It isn't that the political views of the "far right" that are the most-damaging. After all, very negative attitudes towards Jews, Muslims, and everybody brown used to be majority views, yet here we are today, with them in minority. But corruption: that keeps coming back and coming back, with money incentives constantly pushing it back towards full strength. The "Corporate Europe Observatory" that monitors money in politics, has a summary of their paper on the far-right funding by billionaires that could care less for their politics as long as they get low taxes and light enforcement of tax laws: https://corporateeurope.org/en/2019/05/europes-two-faced-authoritarian-right-anti-elite-parties-serving-big-business-interests ...and it's the old story: if you vote for them for the racism, you'll get it, but you're also voting for a huge of transfer of your own money up to the richest.

The question is whether this is a good move or bad for Austria and the EU. If he is replaced by a more right wing leader than Austria and the EU will be worse off. With a more moderate leader, perhaps the nightmare of Trumpism might be lifting ever so slightly.