Karl Nehammer becomes the third chancellor in Austria, Europe. He is the third person in two months to take up the position after a corruption scandal thrust Austria’s politics. Nehammer was sworn in by President Alexander Van der Bellen in a ceremony at the Hofburg palace in Vienna after he assumed the leadership of the governing Austrian People’s Party. Subsequently, Nehammer said that he will approach his office as chancellor with great seriousness and respect.
According to Reuters, after the ceremony, Nehammer said in a statement to reporters that the crowd of people who opposed coronavirus restrictions blew whistles and mocked him. Reportedly, more than 40,000 people protested in Vienna on Saturday against the current lockdown plan imposed by the government. As per the report, the government was planning to make vaccinations compulsory from February. Details of the plan are yet to be announced by the government. On this, Nehammer said that his focus would now be on a meeting on Wednesday about the current plan for lockdown amid the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
Karl Nehammer was earlier the country’s interior minister. He was also the enforcer of then-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's hard line on immigration and of four national lockdowns. However, Kurz resigned amid corruption inquiries in the country. He denied every allegation that was made against him. Austrians then said that Kurz should leave politics altogether because of the corruption investigations, and the collapse of Kurz’s last coalition government with the far-right Freedom Party in 2019. However, Kurz’s successor, Alexander Schallenberg, a former diplomat and foreign ministry spokesman, was widely seen as a placeholder for Kurz. Now, Nehammer is the first head of government of the post-Kurz era.
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