Ibiza-gate scandal leads to the collapse of the ruling coalition in Austria
In Austria, the scandal surrounding the resigned Vice Chancellor and leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, on Monday, May 20, led to the breakup of the ruling coalition of the right and extreme right. In the evening, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced the resignation of Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, the representative of the Austrian Freedom Party (APS) in the cabinet. Following him, all extreme right-wing ministers left the government.
Heinz-Christian Strache resigned last Saturday after the German press published a video of him talking to a woman who introduced herself as “the niece of Igor Makarov, a Russian oligarch close to Putin. In the video, according to journalists, she claimed that unnamed Russians were willing to finance Strache’s election campaign in exchange for the purchase of the Kronen Zeitung newspaper and government contracts in the construction industry. The video was shot by Vienna before the 2017 parliamentary elections.
The scandal surrounding the “Ibiza Gate” (named after the place where Strache met an unknown woman) led Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen to propose early parliamentary elections as early as September (scheduled elections are scheduled for 2022).
Russian billionaire Igor Makarov, president of the Aretha International Group, told Forbes that he had no family ties and was not familiar with the woman in the video with former Austrian Vice Chancellor Strache. There are rumors that the mystery woman is directly related to Kremlin agent Irena Markovic.
On May 20, Chancellor Kurtz’s ruling coalition of conservatives and the extreme right, which was formed in December 2017, effectively disintegrated. The prime minister demanded the resignation of Herbert Kickel, the interior minister of the Austrian Freedom Party. According to the chancellor, the interior minister cannot oversee the scandal at the center of which his former party boss found himself. “Mr. Kickl cannot lead the investigation himself,” Sebastian Kurz was quoted by France-Presse as saying. The Austrian Freedom Party said that if Kickl is fired, all far-right ministers will leave the government. This was announced by Transport Minister Norbert Hofer, who took over the party after the scandalous resignation of Vice Chancellor Strache.
On Monday night, Sebastian Kurz announced at a press conference that “in agreement with the President of the Republic, he proposed to the President the resignation of Interior Minister” Herbert Kickel. Following this statement by the head of government, APA reported that all other ministers from the Austrian Freedom Party were leaving the cabinet. In addition to the deputy chancellor and director of the Interior Ministry, the extreme right has held the posts of foreign, defense, transport, and infrastructure ministers in the government, and has also headed the labor and health ministries.
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