All ministers from Austria's far-right party resign amid scandal

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Europe

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All remaining ministers from Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) are to resign, a party spokesperson said Monday, after one of their number, Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, was fired in the fallout from a corruption scandal that has brought down the government.

Conservative chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who called for fresh elections on Saturday over the affair, said Kickl would have to leave office to ensure a "complete, transparent investigation" into the scandal that has ended a coalition many on the European right had held up as a model ahead of key European Parliament polls later this week.

Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen (R) and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz arrive to speak to the media in Vienna, Austria, May 19, 2019. /VCG Photo

Kurz's FPOe deputy, Heinz-Christian Strache, stepped down as vice-chancellor and party leader on Saturday after recordings published by German media showed him offering government contracts in return for campaign help to a fake Russian backer in a villa on the Spanish resort island of Ibiza. Elsewhere in the footage, Strache appears to hint at ways political donations could escape legal scrutiny.

The other ministers who are now set to follow Kickl out of the government include his colleagues at the foreign, defense, transport and social affairs ministries.

Austria's Vice-Chancellor and Chairman of the Freedom Party FPOe Heinz-Christian Strache gives a press conference in Vienna, May 18, 2019. /VCG Photo

Kurz said the vacant posts would be filled with experts or senior civil servants until the elections which President Van der Bellen has suggested be held in early September. A date will be fixed after Van der Bellen has spoken to all party leaders.

Norbert Hofer, who is infrastructure minister and took over the FPOe leadership from Strache on Sunday, said Kickl had done "nothing wrong." Kickl was FPOe secretary general at the time when any political donations would have been made. Strache on Saturday denied the party had received illegal funds.

"I feel very sorry that such a great government project ends so soon... I think this government was very popular," Hofer told a press conference earlier Monday.

(Cover: Austrian Interior Minister Herbert Kickl leaves after addressing a news conference in Vienna, Austria, May 20, 2019. /VCG Photo)

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Source(s): AFP