(Vienna) Barely two months after his resignation from the Chancellery, Sebastian Kurz announced on Thursday that he would quit political life at 35, a fall as spectacular as his rise and which should in turn lead to the departure of his successor.
Alexander Schallenberg, whom he had appointed to replace him in October, said in the evening that he was “ready to leave his post” to the new leader of the conservative ÖVP party.
“I firmly believe that the two functions – head of government and chairman of the party – should once again be in the hands of the same person,” he said in a statement.
A meeting of the ÖVP bodies is scheduled for Friday. Home Secretary Karl Nehammer is a favorite.
Sebastian Kurz had left power at the beginning of October following the launch of an investigation for corruption against him, while remaining at the head of his formation of which he also chaired the parliamentary group.
But the one who was presented yesterday as the “child prodigy” of Austrian politics has decided to end all of his mandates.
“It’s a new chapter in my life that opens today,” he told reporters in Vienna, saying he wanted to devote time to his son Konstantin, born last weekend.
He also mentioned a new “professional challenge” in the coming months, without giving details.
“Serial scandals”
“This decision was not easy to take, but despite everything, I do not feel any bitterness,” added the former chancellor.
He explained that he had been “worn out” by the recent accusations by the prosecution, which he rejected and which “dented his enthusiasm”. “I am neither a saint nor a criminal, I am a human being with strengths and weaknesses,” he further underlined.
The scandal erupted in October, when several places, including the Chancellery and the Ministry of Finance, were raided as part of an investigation into suspicions of embezzlement of public funds between 2016 and 2018.
The alleged hijacking was intended to finance the publication of falsified polls and laudatory media coverage of Sebastian Kurz in the media of an influential Austrian press group, Österreich.
In exchange, the latter was rewarded via the purchase of lucrative advertising inserts, according to the elements of the parquet floor.
Mr Kurz was the youngest head of government in the world when he took office at the age of 31.
The coalition he had formed with the far right collapsed in 2019 when his ally found himself, already, at the heart of another corruption affair.
New elections had allowed him to regain his post until his resignation in October.
Claiming his innocence, Sebastian Kurz had asked a relative, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, to succeed him.
But in mid-November, Parliament had lifted the parliamentary immunity of the young chancellor.
From the far right to the ecologists
Born in 1986 to a technician father and a teaching mother, the Viennese had a meteoric career before this sudden fall.
He became Secretary of State at only 24 years old, without having completed his law course. He was then appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs at the age of 27 and then became Chancellor in 2017.
He owed his popularity as far as neighboring Germany to his opposition to the reception of refugees and to promises of massive tax cuts for the middle classes.
The flurry of anti-immigration measures passed during his first term and his strained relations with the media or countries like Turkey have made him a divisive personality.
Sebastian Kurz has certainly always asserted his pro-European and pro-Israel convictions. But he rarely reframe the FPÖ, while xenophobic provocations from the far right have tarnished Austria’s image in Europe and the United States.
In January 2020, he joined forces with the Greens, a first for his political family.
The latter are now ruling out new elections, despite sharply declining polls for the right in need of incarnation and pressure from the opposition.
“We are ensuring stability in this country,” Green Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler assured Thursday, while Austria had to reconfigure itself in the face of the new epidemic wave of COVID-19.