tales and tricks of Sebastian, the child prodigy who bewitched Vienna- Corriere.it
The youngest head of government in the world: the seductive style, the meetings with Kissinger, the whipping of Merkel. His fall for Austria is much more than a political crisis
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
BERLIN – The great Karl Kraus defined Austria at the beginning of the twentieth century, “the place of experimentation for the end of the world”. Twenty-two years and a century later, the Viennese facts acquire to prove him right. The resignation of Sebastian Kurz, overwhelmed by a scandal where hubris and criminal determination to make up the game of democracy support each other, revealing the reality of a system where the “new style” promised by the chancellor was just a drama.
The Porcelain Prince
He was the youngest head of government in the world, Sebastian Kurz. It was the porcelain face that came out of nowhere, which had conquered and transfigured a venerable force such as the ÖVP, the popular party, making it the docile instrument of a rise as prince as it was irresistible. A master in the art of rhetorical seduction, flexible and vague enough not to bind himself into definitive positions, Kurz had offered a sated, rich and sleepy country, the thrill of change and a new political frontier.
Two worlds
“I am a very normal person,” he told me when I interviewed him in 2020, shortly after giving life to the unprecedented alliance between the popular and the Greens, which made Austria the political laboratory of Europe. “Together we have the best of both worlds, which will allow both of us to keep the most important promises: we will reduce taxes and fight against illegal immigration, the Greens will be able to step up the fight against climate change and make immigration more transparent Administration”. A promise, the latter, which plays mocking in the light of what emerges in these hours.
Two worlds
Sebastian Kurz was always in a hurry. In Vienna they still remember it when, in 2009, he ran for the city council and drove on board a “Geil-o-Mobil”, the cool car, not only in the sense of fresh. And indeed, the future chancellor accompanied several scantily clad ladies, handing out black condoms, the color of the party which he would later change to turquoise. It is a past that he hasn’t gladly talked about since his Radetzky march to the summit began: Undersecretary for Integration at 24, Deputy at 26, Foreign Minister at 27, immediately at ease on the world stage. His trips to New York for the UN Assembly are told: high-level meetings, speeches on the threat of radical Islam, private interviews with Henry Kissinger. The polite manners, the elegant figure, the boyish face made luminous by the long hair pulled back to Umberta. In 2016, his first real moment of glory: even Angela Merkel wand, which has welcomed over 1 million Syrian refugees to Germany, and is decisive in closing the Balkan route.
Will to power
But the real game is internal. Discipline, determination, Wille zur Macht, will to power, are the qualities that Kurz unleashes by putting in place a secret plan, with attention to every detail: Operation Ballhaus Platz, from the name of the square where the Viennese chancellery is. Today we know that that plan had a criminal part, made up of corruption, rigged polls, false advertising. In May 2017, Kurz makes a hostile takeover on the ÖVP, taking out the old shit. In three months he seduces the Austrians with a far-right script: no to immigration, closure of borders, easy expulsions that the refugees who avoid. In September 2017, he became chancellor for the first time, allying himself with one of the most embarrassing sovereign forces in Europe, Heinz-Christian Strache’s FPÖ. He will get rid of it with the Ibiza-gate, a story between Boccaccio and the ridiculous, between daughters of fake oligarchs and promises of favors. When Kurz triumphs in the new elections with over 37% and chooses the Greens in 2019, he seems invincible. But it is only an illusion. The short story is over. Austria has again experienced the end of the world.
October 9, 2021 (change October 9, 2021 | 22:57)
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