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Sebastian Kurz: Surprising news on his Twitter account
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Georg Hochmuth / dpa / APA
»My first trip as Federal Chancellor takes me deliberately to Brussels.
[...] My message is clear: Austria is and will remain a reliable partner in the EU. "
With this news, Austria's new Federal Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg wanted to attract trust in his country after the recent government crisis.
But at first the message caused confusion and, above all, a lot of malice.
The news accidentally first appeared on the account of Schallenberg's predecessor Sebastian Kurz.
"Sebastian Kurz travels to Brussels disguised as Alexander Schallenberg," the incident was commented on on Twitter, or also: "Oops, the Chancellor accounts swapped." There was also talk of the "Shadow Twitter Chancellor".
When the post could finally only be seen on Schallenberg's account, as intended, a user asked: "Are you two there?" Other users expressed sympathy for the person responsible for social media from Schallenberg's team.
Kurz's account has significantly more followers
Alexander Schallenberg's Twitter account is still relatively small, the new Federal Chancellor is only followed by around 11,200 users.
Sebastian Kurz's account, on the other hand, from which the misdirected message quickly disappeared, has 486,000 followers.
After the mishap, many observers of Austrian politics felt motivated to examine where Chancellor Kurz, who is no longer Chancellor, still appears as Chancellor who is still Chancellor.
The journalist Michael Nikbakhsh noticed that the Federal Chancellery was mentioned on Sebastian Kurz's website under “Address”.
In the meantime, however, this entry has also been changed, and the change of Chancellor in Austria is also taking place digitally.
The website entry for Sebastian Kurz now refers to the parliamentary club of the Austrian People's Party.
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