Austrian Leader Calls for Snap Election After Far-Right Vice Chancellor Resigns

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/world/europe/austria-strache-resigns-video.html

Austrian Leader Calls for Snap Election After Far-Right Vice Chancellor Resigns
By Katrin Bennhold and Christopher F. Schuetze
May 18, 2019

BERLIN — Austria’s leadership was thrown into turmoil on Saturday after a video emerged that raised questions about whether Russia had direct influence inside a government at the heart of Europe.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called snap elections after the country’s far-right vice chancellor resigned over a secretly filmed video from 2017. The video showed Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the far-right Freedom Party promising government contracts to a woman claiming to be a prospective investor and niece of a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir V. Putin.

The meeting appears to have been a setup. But it exposed the Freedom Party’s apparent eagerness to do business with allies of Mr. Putin.

“After yesterday’s video, I have to honestly say, enough is enough,” Mr. Kurz told a room packed with reporters on Saturday night in the capital Vienna. He said he had asked Austria’s president to hold a new election “as soon as possible.”

The video was the worst in a series of missteps that ultimately brought down Austria’s governing coalition. It raised anew concerns about whether the Freedom Party had been actively working to undermine liberal democracy and media freedoms in the country while it helped Mr. Kurz govern as the junior party in his coalition.

For weeks, opposition parties had called on Mr. Kurz to end his controversial coalition with the Freedom Party, with its well-documented links to far-right extremists and to Russia, which have increasingly worried allies at home and abroad.

[Andy823]

1. I am sure Russia will deny any connections

And I am sure that trump will do the right thing, for Putin, and say "he told me he didn't do it, and I believe him!

[toddwv]

6. "Putin toldme that he had nothing to do with the Australian election. I believe him!"

[monmouth4]

2. What can we (I include other countries affected) do about Putin and his merry men interfering in the

business and elections in other countries. As he continues to get away with it, he will continue. I've about had it with that guy.

[uponit7771]

3. K&R, nah... Russian influence here can't happen here in the US

[UniteFightBack]

4. It already has and it's already on tape with Paul Ryan/McCarthy whatever scumbag taking note

of the Russian Republicans.

[uponit7771]

5. +1, I agree ... No way they broker into systems for the hell of it