The rise and fall of Austria’s ‘political wunderkind’ Sebastian Kurz

The man dubbed the “master of Austrian politics” after becoming the country’s youngest ever chancellor at just 31 has made global headlines once more by resigning for a second time in three years.

Now aged 35, Sebastian Kurz has “been involved in enough political intrigue for several lifetimes”, said The Economist. The controversial leader of the Austrian People’s Party (OVP) staged a political comeback after stepping down in 2019, but has been “toppled” again amid allegations that he “masterminded a conspiracy” to buy positive media coverage.

Kurz “would barely be old enough to run for president” in the US, the paper added, but as the fallout from the latest scandal intensifies, “his career at the top of Austrian politics may already be approaching its end”.

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‘Political wunderkind’

Kurz has been “the master of Austrian politics” since 2017, the Financial Times (FT) said. But “in the end, the only thing quicker than the rise of Kurz was his downfall”.

The “political wunderkind” rose to power “by cultivating a youthful, do-gooder image that endeared him to young and old alike”, Politico said. “And then he went rogue.”

A huge “cache of private text messages between the centre-right chancellor and his deputies” uncovered during a “sweeping corruption investigation” by Austrian authorities has “all but destroyed the public persona he built as a fresh-faced millennial politician”, the news site continued.

His carefully cultivated image as the “favourite son-in-law of the nation” who “captured the heart of his compatriots and much of the EU” has been replaced by that of “a shrewd behind-the-scenes operator willing to do whatever it takes to push through his agenda”.

Kurz denies any wrongdoing, but his chancellorship was brought “to an abrupt end” after “police raided ministries across Vienna”, said the FT. The raids revealed “the existence of a probe by Austrian state prosecutors into grand corruption at the heart of government”.

Although no charges have been brought against anyone, “the allegations are explosive”, the paper added, with “Kurz and a coterie of close allies” suspected of using “taxpayers’ money to bribe media organisations into providing positive coverage”.

The investigation found that Finance Ministry funds appeared to have “been used to manipulate opinion polls in favour of the OVP that were then published in a newspaper”, the BBC reported.

While no newspaper was named, tabloid Osterreich released a statement days later “denying media reports it had taken taxpayers' money for advertising in exchange for publishing the favourable polls”, the broadcaster added.

According to The Economist, “fake invoices are said to have disguised the ploy”, which was uncovered after investigators probed “a stash of 300,000 text messages discovered on the phone of Thomas Schmid”, a Kurz supporter working in the Finance Ministry.

Kurz is “not a direct subject of the corruption investigations”, said Politico. But the scandal has “touched his inner circle”, destroying his persona as the “politician who would put an end to the clubby machine-style politics that dominated Austria’s postwar history”.

“It’s a spectacular, sheer political fall,” Thomas Hofer, a political consultant, told the FT.

Kurz “was so absolutely successful” at winning votes, Hofer said, adding: “His closest allies and his sternest critics both sort of regarded him with this sense that he could walk on water, if he wanted to.”

‘Gone, but not gone’

Kurz previously stepped down from the role of chancellor two-and-a-half years ago, amid the fallout of another political scandal.

The so-called Ibiza Affair “exploded” following the release of a video “showing the far-right leader who became Kurz’s coalition partner offering to trade political favours for cash during a boozy session with a woman he believed to be the niece of a Russian oligarch”, Politico explained.

Kurz survived the immediate scandal, but the allegations took his government to the brink of collapse after the Greens, a junior partner in the coalition, argued that he was no longer fit to be chancellor.

The Greens began talks with opposition parties, who were threatening to bring a vote of no confidence against Kurz when he jumped before he could be pushed. But he made a comeback by winning the 2019 legislative election and forming a new coalition government with the Greens.

Although Kurz is now out of the chancellery for a second time, he “will still be a major figure in Austrian politics”, wrote the BBC’s Vienna correspondent Bethany Bell following his resignation earlier this month.

“As leader of his party, he will be present at cabinet meetings,” she said. Opposition politicians have voiced fears that Kurz “will be pulling the strings as a shadow chancellor”.

“Some members of Kurz’s party are hoping his resignation will be temporary and he will be able to stage a comeback,” Bell added.

Kurz is “gone, but not gone”, said Liam Hoare, the Europe editor of Moment Magazine. The astute politician “may have cast the resignation as falling upon his sword”, Hoare wrote in an article for The New Statesman, but as OVP leader he “is also extremely well-positioned should new elections come about sooner rather than later”.

“As long as he isn’t charged, Kurz could stress his honour in resigning and protest his innocence while running a right-wing populist electoral campaign,” Hoare suggested.

“In his brief political life”, said The Economist, Kurz “has been in coalition with three of Austria’s four other main parties”. But “all of them have ruptured”.

Even if the latest scandal does not undermine his credibility with voters, it will serve as a “warning for anyone else who might think of going into government with him”, the paper argued.

The row may also serve as a warning to politicians further afield. Austria is “a small European country, but one that is central to the EU project”, said the FT.

“If the rule of law is faltering in Austria then it is a damning indictment of the EU’s political health”.