"Please, please forget the polls," calls out Sebastian Kurz to his supporters in the 2017 Austrian election campaign.
Although he is in the lead, each and every one of them should still vote.
Kurz's closest circle of supporters presumably helped himself to make the surveys look so good for him back then.
For a moment it seems like it might be blown.
Kurz 'competitor Christian Kern suspects that something is wrong with the surveys.
In the “Inside Austria” podcast, SPIEGEL and “Standard” jointly examine the network that made Sebastian Kurz great. This episode is about the risk Kurz and his confidants take in order to smooth his way into the Chancellery. How he leads an American-style election campaign. And why the ÖVP man is approaching the right-wing populists around Heinz-Christian Strache and initiating a momentous pact with them.
What is happening in Austria right now is a state affair: searches of the Austrian Chancellery, the federal headquarters of the ÖVP Chancellor Party, the Ministry of Finance and one of the country's most important publishing houses.
There has not been a comparable blow against the executive in Austria since the end of the Second World War.
The investigation is not only against Sebastian Kurz, but also against nine other accused, among other things because of suspicion of infidelity and aiding and abetting bribery.
In our podcast, we trace how it got to this point.
You can also find an overview of all current developments and new revelations in the Kurz affair in our new weekly newsletter “Inside Austria”.
