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The country’s government collapsed on Saturday after Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said he was pulling the plug on his ruling coalition after just 17 months in office.
The move came barely 24 hours after the release of a bombshell video showing Heinz-Christian Strache, the far-right leader of his junior coalition partner, trying to trade public contracts for party donations from a woman he believed to be the wealthy niece of a Russian oligarch.
“Enough is enough,” Kurz said in a brief statement to the press from his baroque office in Vienna, describing the many challenges he faced in recent months in dealing with Strache’s Freedom Party, which despite its alignment with the chancellor’s center-right People’s Party on policy issues, remained a lightning rod for criticism with its racist comments and other controversies. [...]
“The Freedom Party has damaged the country’s image,” Kurz said, adding that he doesn’t have the impression the party is willing to change.
Coming just days before next week’s European Parliament election, the episode has rocked the political landscape in both Austria and Europe, where the Alpine nation’s non-traditional coalition was seen as an experiment in the viability of alliances that pair mainstream parties with populists. [...]