Caught on camera

Snap poll for Austria after pollie offers influence for money

CHANTING and whistling for hours, thousands of demonstrators have cheered the collapse of Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s Government over a corruption scandal – and the prospect of fresh elections.

“Kurz must go” cried the crowd that had built up in Vienna on Saturday.

The spontaneous protest erupted after Mr Kurz’s coalition partner, the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), led by Heinz-Christian Strache, was caught in a video sting offering influence for money,

In hidden-camera recordings published by German media, Mr Strache was seen promising public contracts in return for campaign help to a fake Russian backer over a boozy dinner in a villa on the resort island of Ibiza.

As the news of fresh elections came through on demonstrators’ smartphones later, loud cheers erupted.

Expressing a widespread view that Mr Kurz had too often excused the scandals of his coalition partner, social education worker Andreas Hallas said the vote was “an absolute necessity”.

“Anything else would have been an absolute catastrophe, politically,” said Mr Hallas, adding he hoped for a new government without the FPOe and Kurz’s centre-right People’s Party (OeVP).

Mr Hallas is among those who has been turning up for anti-government demonstrations held every Thursday for more than six months.

But as 61-year-old Elvira Raffinger pointed out, “today is a spontaneous gathering and that’s rare for Austria”, a country where street politics is not the norm.

Isaac Heimbach, a 24year-old biology student, said he thought the video was “just the tip of the iceberg, just a look behind the curtain” of the far-right leadership.

“I hope that this will open the eyes of Austrians who voted for the right,” he said