Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has resigned. In recent days, a lot of pressure had been put on him due to a corruption investigation involving him. Kurz, 35 and leader of the People’s Party (center-right), has proposed that his post be now taken over by the current foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg.
Although the Austrian Attorney General announced on Wednesday Kurz’s involvement in the corruption investigation, the People’s Party defended its leader. It wasn’t enough, however. On Friday the Greens, who are part of the ruling coalition, had said that Kurz should not have remained chancellor; the same request was made by the opposition parties, which had announced that they wanted to present a motion of no confidence against Kurz next Tuesday in parliament.
Nine other people are under investigation together with Kurz. They are all accused of illegitimately using funds from the Ministry of Finance between 2016 and 2018 to manipulate polls in favor of Kurz and his party, and facilitate the publication of favorable news in Austrian newspapers (at that time Kurz was minister of Foreign).
Kurz was in his second term as Austrian chancellor: the first started in December 2017 and ended in May 2019, the second started in January 2020.
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