Austria’s Kurz faces no-confidence vote

Bloomberg

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is set to face a no-confidence vote as soon as next week, raising the specter of a deepening state crisis.
His decision to sack nationalist Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, triggering the resignation of the remaining Freedom Party cabinet members, estranged his erstwhile partners and raised the chances that the parliamentary motion will pass with Freedom Party backing.
“It would be naïve of Kurz if he was assuming that after he’s expressed his mistrust in the Freedom Party, the Freedom Party wouldn’t mistrust him,” Kickl told Oesterreich newspaper. “Kurz has maneuvered himself into a dead end.”
Since taking power in 2017, Kurz has tried to show conservatives across Europe that they can achieve their goals by working with their nationalist rivals. But the collapse of his coalition has served rather to highlights the risks of getting into bed with a party that has spent much of its time on the fringes of the mainstream.
Kurz asked President Alexander Van der Bellen to dismiss Kickl and agreed with the president to appoint independent caretakers to take the posts of the Freedom Party ministers until snap elections, that probably will take place in September.
The 32-year old leader — who has declared his former coalition partner unfit to govern — has had to navigate a chaotic situation since nationalist leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned as his vice chancellor over a video showing him promising government contracts for campaign funds.
Kurz has shifted gears to begin campaigning, attempting to calm rattled voters as he tries to consolidate power. In the first poll after the eventful weekend his People’s Party gained four percentage points and now stands at 38 percent support.
The Freedom Party said that Kickl’s comments didn’t mean that the party would back the no-confidence motion.