Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has proposed sacking interior minister Herbert Kickl, after Kickl refused to resign in the wake of a video detailing alleged corruption on the part of Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache.
Kickl is a member of Strache’s Freedom Party (FPO), and refused to resign after Strache stepped down on Saturday.
Kurz argued that as interior minister, Kickl could not properly oversee an investigation into the leader of his own party. Kickl, meanwhile, accused Kurz of launching a power grab on behalf of his Austrian People’s Party (OVP).
Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen has the power to dismiss Kickl. The FPO have promised to withdraw all of their ministers from government if this were to happen, but Kurz has said he will fill their seats until snap elections could be held.
The video scandal currently engulfing Austrian politics began on Friday, after a video surfaced showing Stache meeting with the supposed niece of a Russian oligarch in Ibiza in 2017 to discuss a quid-pro-quo deal. Stache called the tape’s surfacing a “political assassination,” and though Kurz outright condemned Stache’s alleged corruption, he too hinted in interviews that dirty tricks were afoot.
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Source : RT - Daily news
Austria’s Kurz proposes sacking interior minister as video scandal spirals
Austria’s Kurz proposes sacking interior minister as video scandal spirals
