Sebastian Kurz, the former chancellor of Austria, quits politics. Several Austrian and German newspapers write this. Kurz resigned in early October after being named in a corruption scandal. He had also been mentioned in several affairs before.
According to Kronen Zeitung, Kurz would like more time with his family, and his desire to put a lot of energy into politics has disappeared. Kurz himself has not confirmed anything yet. At the end of 2017, Kurz, then 31, became the youngest head of government in Europe ever. He headed two Austrian governments.
“When he saw his child – his recently born son – he clicked and decided to withdraw from politics,” writes the Kronen Zeitung this morning, based on confidants from the Kurz area. And so ends a blitz career, which was bathed in a tinge of corruption and recently ended in resignation and the lifting of his parliamentary immunity.
At the beginning of October, Sebastian Kurz resigned as Chancellor of Austria. It was under pressure from his coalition partner, the Greens, who did not want to continue with a tipsy Kurz. The occasion was a new scandal – the umpteenth – in which the young chancellor was allegedly involved.
The allegations were that Sebastian Kurz bribed a newspaper. We actually have to go back to 2016: then Kurz was foreign minister for the ÖVP, but he also had ambitions to become the leader of the Christian Democrats, which he succeeded. With public money, he had polls conducted in favour of him and his party, but had them paid for by the ministry as “investigation”. The core message: The ÖVP will be better if I become the leader. In addition, money would also have been deposited to employees of the newspaper “Österreich” to report positively about him. All this with tax money.
Soon Kurz himself will give more explanation at a press conference. For the time being, he himself – through the newspaper – emphasizes his family as the decisive factor. But that the judicial investigation that is underway against him, now that his immunity has been lifted – is decisive, is of course indisputable. It is the pinnacle of scandal-filled blitz career.