Home » Managed appointments, the long wave of the Ibizagate hits Kurz. “I’m not resigning”

Managed appointments, the long wave of the Ibizagate hits Kurz. “I’m not resigning”

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The long wave of the Ibizagate also makes Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz waver, accused of perjury before the parliamentary commission investigating the scandal that led to the dissolution of his first cabinet in 2019. But the young head of government says he is sure of coming out clean and excludes resigning.

«Ibizagate»: a political earthquake

Under the lens there are some political appointments discussed in the offending video: the one – it should be remembered – dating back to 2017 in which the future vice-chancellor Hans-Christian Strache and the deputy of the party, the populist and xenophobic right of the FPÖ, Johann Gudenus, discussed with the self-styled daughter of a Russian oligarch in Ibiza the opportunity to grant her rich contracts in public works in exchange for party funding, the acquisition of an Austrian tabloid and favorable coverage of the election campaign. The one that would then lead to the formation of a government between the Kurz People’s Party (the Övp) and the FPÖ.

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The discovery of that scandal – a real trap in the opinion of some analysts – forced Strache to resign and marked the end of the first Kurz government, without affecting the prestige of thechild prodigy of Austrian politics, confirmed as the most voted in subsequent elections and re-elected chancellor at the helm of an executive in tandem with the Greens.

That political earthquake, however, continued to produce aftershocks, with the birth of a parliamentary commission of inquiry to ascertain any episodes of corruption and several high-ranking politicians gradually forced to resign or under investigation. Among the most recent, in February, Finance Minister Gernot Blümel, Kurz’s close political ally, investigated on charges of corruption for the Övp funding by the gaming company Novamatic, which was mentioned in the video indicted.

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The appointment that troubles Kurz

And now it’s up to Kurz. At issue is the appointment of Thomas Schmid, a man of trust of the Popolari, to the top of Obag, the state holding that manages Austria’s investments in partially or fully nationalized companies. Kurz denied his close involvement in the appointment of Schmid at the top of the body to the commission of inquiry into the Ibiza case, as it was the task of the Obag supervisory board. However, the chancellor’s chats released in recent weeks suggest he was piloting the procedure. Including a reply message to Schmid in which Kurz stated “You can still get what you want”. Hence the hypothesis of “perjury”, a crime for which one risks up to three years in prison, and the opening by the Austrian Public Prosecutor’s Office for the Economy and Corruption of an investigation into the Chancellor.

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