Austrian cabinet fractures as chancellor targets far-right minister
Conservative Sebastian Kurz pulled plug on coalition after video sting snares his vice-chancellor
Vienna — Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz proposed on Monday sacking his interior minister, escalating a battle triggered when a video sting took down the longtime leader of his far-right coalition partners. Kurz, a conservative, ended his coalition with the nationalist Freedom Party (FPO) on Saturday after leader and vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache was caught in the apparent sting operation 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 removing interior minister Herbert Kickl from office after Kickl refused to go voluntarily, as Strache has. The FPO had announced that it would quit all its ministerial posts should Kickl, a mastermind of the FPO’s ascent to power, be forced out. It followed through after Kurz’s remarks. “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...
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