Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has proposed sacking his interior minister, escalating a battle triggered when a video sting took down the longtime leader of his far-right coalition partners.
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Kurz, a conservative, ended his coalition with the nationalist Freedom Party (FPO) on Saturday after leader and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache was caught offering to fix state contracts for a woman posing as a Russian oligarch's niece.
The fight took a new turn when Kurz told reporters he would propose to Austria's President Alexander Van der Bellen removing Interior Minister Herbert Kickl from office after Kickl refused to go voluntarily, as Strache did.
The FPO had announced it would vacate all its ministerial posts if Kickl, a mastermind of the FPO's ascent to power, was forced out.
"I agreed with the president that we want to guarantee stability until the new elections. That's why we'll fill the vacant jobs in the ministries with experts or senior government officials," Kurz said.
He said this would keep the government operating effectively until elections in September.
Opposition parties readied a vote of no confidence in the government and it was not clear the FPO would side with Kurz in the vote.
Austrian news agency APA reported the FPO's ministers quit in unison on Monday.
But in a later interview with national broadcaster ORF, Norbert Hofer, the new head of the Freedom Party, only repeated that its ministers would step down if Kickl was forced out.
German media published the video on Friday, a week before a European Parliament election and a year-and-a-half after Austria once again became the only Western European country with far-right cabinet ministers. It has since been joined by Italy.
The video showed Strache meeting the woman in 2017, shortly before the election that brought him into government.
In the footage, Strache discussed rules on party financing and how to work around them.
Describing the footage as "targeted political assassination", he said he has done nothing illegal and never met the woman again.
Niki Fellner, editor in chief of the Oesterreich tabloid newspaper, said by openly discussing what he called corruption and dirty tricks, Strache had tarnished Austria's image: "From Germany to Hungary, we are seen as of now as a banana republic."
Kurz has argued Kickl could not oversee an investigation into the sting that snared his party leader.
Australian Associated Press
