On Monday, the Austrian parliament passed a motion of no confidence against Chancellor Kurz and his government amid the scandal involving the ruling party’s coalition partner, the FPO, whose former leader Heinz-Christian Strache was taped discussing potentially exchanging government contracts against help with the election.
Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen has officially dissolved the government under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz a day after the latter lost a no-confidence vote.
The President has tasked Vice Chancellor Hartwig Loger to serve as the country’s Chancellor until interim head of cabinet is appointed.
The developments come after Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and all ministers from Kurz’s minor coalition partner, the Freedom Party (FPO), except for Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, resigned on 20 May.
This was preceded by a recently published video that showed Strache discussing a deal that reportedly could have helped the FPO in the 2017 parliamentary elections with a woman posed as a niece of an alleged Russian oligarch from Latvia.