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Sebastian Kurz and the resignation: Austrian legwork

2021-10-11T15:51:11.480Z


Chancellor Kurz resigns. Or to the side? Or diagonally forward? About the art of the political Viennese waltz.


Enlarge image

Sebastian Kurz with partner Susanne Thier at the Opera Ball in 2019: Audacity is the political dancer's floor polish

Photo: Herbert Neubauer / picture alliance / dpa

Unfortunately, as an inexperienced waltz dancer, you never get to where you actually wanted to go.

And it is not always possible to say with certainty whether you have moved forwards, backwards or to the side - because as a couple you turn around your own axis again.

As a skilled waltz dancer, on the other hand, you know exactly which step you have to lengthen and how in order to land exactly where you have to go, while from the outside it looks as if everything is going haywire.

Sebastian Kurz claims to be a bad dancer, which is why he prefers to sit safely in the box at the opera ball. However, he masters the political waltz. Because while the audience is still puzzling after his latest maneuver, where Kurz has actually stopped, one can assume that he has positioned himself exactly where he wanted to go for this moment.

Even if his speech on Saturday initially gave the appearance of a resignation, his FPÖ quickly tried to spin from the "step to the side", which eventually most of the media took up. With the sentence "My country is more important to me than my person" he initially took a step back, but dodged away from this self-chosen background position more quickly than Piefke could smile at the word "Oasch" or biceps emojis.

When Kurz proposed Foreign Minister Schallenberg as the new head of government, the sideways step followed;

and finally, in this one recognizes the true mastery of the political dancer, he dared to take the long step forward, albeit from a sloping backward position: "I myself will return to parliament as party chairman and club chairman and try to make my contribution there."

Regardless of any discussion about state political responsibility and internal party consequences: From a German point of view, one cannot entirely hide a certain admiration for this Austrian legwork.

Because here in the political field, the rogue, stupid or in-the-corner-stand-still dominate.

You could by all means learn something from the elegant back-to-front technique. Instead, Armin Laschet padded to a place in an almost self-satirizing Laschet speech that probably not even he himself knew where it was in the coordinate system of his party. Andi Scheuer can no longer even be said to have lost the rhythm. He just hasn't moved at all for years.

At most, Franziska Giffey masters the political waltz as perfectly as Kurz. With her resignation as minister, she created the space she needed to rule the capital as mayor - although one can wonder why cheating on a doctoral thesis should make one job impossible, but not the other. But it is precisely the audacity that is the political dancer's floor polish. Which is why one doesn't necessarily have to believe Kurz when he now denies being a shadow chancellor.

Much has been said of late about the correct method of resignation.

How to manage to find the right time, how to use the so-called momentum for yourself in order to get out of this mess of whatever kind as gracefully as possible.

Sebastian Kurz is now showing a new way: First of all, you don't have to lose anything when you step back - as long as you turn fast enough, don't stop and don't stumble under any circumstances.

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-10-11

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