After becoming the world’s youngest elected leader in 2017 at age 31, Austria’s Sebastian Kurz has pulled off yet another surprise. If anyone can swing such a drastic change of allies, it is the millennial leader of the centre-right People’s Party (OeVP) — even though he has proved to be a polarising figure. Despite presiding over a period of unusual instability when a graft scandal engulfed his junior coalition partner, the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), in May, Kurz managed to expand his support base, picking up unhappy FPOe voters to win 37.5 percent in September snap elections.
