Austria braces for snap election as coalition shatters

PanARMENIAN.Net - Austria's youthful foreign minister took over as leader of the country's main conservative party on Sunday, May 14 and called for a snap parliamentary election that center-left Chancellor Christian Kern admitted he could not prevent, Reuters reports.

Kern's Social Democrats (SPO) and Sebastian Kurz's conservative People's Party (OVP) are coalition partners and have dominated Austrian politics for decades, but are now at daggers drawn.

An early election would give the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), currently leading in opinion polls, a good chance of entering national government less than a year after its candidate lost a presidential runoff.

However, some surveys have suggested the OVP would leap from third to first place if the 30-year-old Kurz, who takes a tough stance on immigration, became its leader. Forming a government in Austria usually requires at least two parties.

"There will definitely ... be an election, I assume in the coming autumn," Kern told ORF TV. He had resisted the idea of a snap election, calling for the coalition to keep working until its term ends in more than a year's time.

Hours later, the OVP leadership appointed Kurz as their leader and also handed him sweeping new powers including the ability to pick the party's list of candidates for parliament.

Kurz told a news conference he would meet the chancellor on Monday and suggest they jointly propose a parliamentary election be held after the summer.

A spokeswoman for Kern said the chancellor was unaware of any meeting with Kurz on Monday.

Kurz is a star of Austrian politics and widely seen as his party's best hope of reviving its fortunes. The previous OVP leader, Reinhold Mitterlehner, quit on Wednesday after failing to stop in-fighting among his ministers.