The meteoric rise and abrupt fall of the high-flyer Sebastian Kurz offers a political spectacle that Austria repeatedly puts on. The country seems to be waiting for a charismatic savior. And falls flat on his face with it.
“You’re probably wondering what has happened again,” said Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen in his statement, with which he informed his compatriots about the resignation of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. It’s a phrase you say to kids who have done something stupid. And indeed: the Causa Kurz is just one of the many scandals that have afflicted Austria in recent decades. From Androsch via Waldheim and Haider to Grasser. What is it all about and what are the causes?
With the Viennese philosopher and publicist Konrad Paul Liessman says the NZZ editor-in-chief Eric Gujer about the Austrian political culture, which under the influence of the imperial tradition, but also under the burden of National Socialism, has developed its very own characteristics. Democracy is solid, political mores are by no means so. Complaints about petrification, bureaucracy and association are omnipresent in the country itself. And yet there seems to be no real interest in change.