VIENNA, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz believes that the two other main parties in the parliament will join forces to see through a motion of no-confidence against his government on Monday.
Speaking to the media as he cast his vote in the European Parliament elections on Sunday, Kurz said both former coalition partners, the right-wing populist Freedom Party and the centre-left Social Democrats would see his own conservative People's Party brought down.
The comments came in the wake of a recent corruption scandal, which saw former Freedom Party leader and Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache caught on secret video offering government contracts to purported representatives of a Russian oligarch, in exchange for political favor.
Strache later resigned, though Kurz also called for the dismissal of Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, another Freedom Party member, which subsequently took place.
The remaining Freedom Party ministers resigned in retaliation, bringing the coalition that formed in 2017 to an abrupt end, and forcing Kurz to install a caretaker cabinet, replacing the departed ministers with high-ranking officials and experts.
A snap election had initially been intended for September.
Social Democrats leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner who was non-committal over whether her party would support the no-confidence vote, told the media that her party would decide on Monday.
President Alexander Van der Bellen meanwhile said he thinks "there can be no talk of a national crisis" with regard to the issue, arguing that in other countries such votes can be much worse than in Austria.
