After Sebastian Kurz’s final resignation, not only coalition partners and the opposition, but even close party friends would only have found out shortly before his press conference on Thursday what the ex-chancellor was planning: Ciao, thank you, Baba to say. In truth, this decision had been looming for weeks; A certain amount of preparation behind the scenes proves that the ÖVP is able to set up a new personnel board within less than 24 hours. But it also shows how the defensive and self-healing powers of the party work: after the short-is-away shock, the old mechanisms quickly come into play again, former pullers take up their posts again, and regional power centers are filled with new machismo. But it is unlikely that this will be enough.
Kurz did, as he emphasizes, “served the republic” for ten years, but in the end he was only twice chancellor for almost two years – and otherwise either in the election campaign or on the defensive. The man from Meidling left little behind for the party, for whom he thanked so much in his resignation speech, except for anger. The euphoria about his heroic deeds lasted for a short time, and Kurz’s election victories, which have so often been vaunted in the past few days, look stale in retrospect if, all in all, the clean-up work threatens to take longer than the satisfaction with high approval rates. It is well known that voter sympathy is very volatile. Ultimately, sustainability counts not only in climate policy, but also in the service of citizens in general.
The party longs for an unencumbered restart
So what’s left? The closest brief confidants would have to give way, it is now said, so that the ÖVP creates an unencumbered restart: unencumbered by investigation and criminal proceedings, by bad news from the judiciary, unencumbered by chats and embarrassment. Kurz did not have to leave because of his thin ideas presented in repetitive loops and their sloppy implementation, but because, in the worst case, he faces jail time.
What the ÖVP, however, threatens to forget during their hectic winter cleaning: The investigation remains a threat – not only under criminal law, but as a permanent threat to the party’s new clean image, which is currently being tinkered with. Even the atmospheric aftermath of earlier scandals, as can be seen from a dozen examples from the country’s recent political history, continues to poison public debate. And a committee of inquiry into the ÖVP scandals of recent years is only just starting.
The designated Chancellor Karl Nehammer knows what is at stake
There will be revenge for a long time yet that the party held the net for a handsome trapeze artist and is now without its great attraction. You can gossip about the SPÖ boss Pamela Rendi-Wagner, who feels rather uncomfortable at public appearances, you can smile about the Greens boss Werner Kogler, who sometimes can’t find the exit from his box sentences, you can Neos boss Beate Meinl -Travelers sometimes find a little too cheeky, but they all basically make serious politics. The ÖVP will struggle to convince its voters that it can and wants to do it well. Karl Nehammer proved in his first appearance as Chancellor-designate that he knows what is at stake. After all, his freestyle shows that his party knows that too.