Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen met with Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to hold meeting at the Presidential Chancellery in Vienna on Tuesday, following Kurz’s recent call for snap elections after his coalition partner and Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned.
Yesterday, Kurz asked Van der Bellen to dismiss Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, a popular member of the Freedom Party. This triggered a strong reaction from FPÖ ministers, who have since all resigned.
Van der Bellen has stated that the only way forward after the Ibiza scandal would be calling for fresh-elections.
The political chaos comes in the wake of a scandal involving former Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache that resulted in his resignation. A widely-circulated video shows Strache allegedly accepting support in the elections from a woman who claimed to be a Russian investor in exchange for public contracts in 2017.