Austria-Right wing populist corruption scandal: Populist Austria heading for September election after far-right video scandal

Austria's president on Sunday recommended a new election be held in early September, saying he wanted to restore trust in the government after a video scandal led to the resignation of the vice-chancellor.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz pulled the plug on the coalition and called for a snap election on Saturday after his deputy, Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, quit over a video showed him discussing fixing state contracts in return for favours from a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch.

Kurz accepted that the video was "catastrophic," although he denied breaking the law or following through on discussions.Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz says he sees the snap elections as the only way to solve the crisis involving a video that appears to show the country's vice-chancellor discussing government contracts with an alleged Russian investor.
Read more at: Austria heading for September election after far-right video scandal | CBC News

Turkey: Erdogan Calls Snap Election for June; Lira, Stocks Rally -

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called elections a year earlier than scheduled, moving to consolidate his one-man rule of the region’s largest economy.

The vote will complete the transformation of the political system, eliminating the prime minister’s job and weakening the role of parliament. Turkish markets rallied after Erdogan’s announcement in Ankara that the country will go to the polls June 24 to pick a president, almost certainly ratifying his hold on power.

“In calling an early election, Erdogan must feel confident he and his AK Party have the necessary numbers to achieve victory," said Paul Greer, a London-based portfolio manager at Fidelity International. "That itself should reduce market uncertainty."

Erdogan’s ruling party has never called early elections in the nearly 16 years it’s been in power, and repeatedly rejected speculation that it’d call them this year. Many analysts had predicted an early vote nonetheless, saying a deteriorating economic outlook and fighting in neighboring Syria would prompt him to move up the date rather than risk re-election in a downturn.

Erdogan, who defeated an attempted coup in 2016, has stoked nationalist fervor since launching an incursion into Syria in January, playing the same card as other strongmen, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

“It has become a necessity for Turkey to overcome uncertainties as soon as possible amid developments of historical importance in our region as well as the cross-border operation we’re carrying out in Syria,” Erdogan said in announcing the vote.

Read more: Erdogan Calls Snap Election for June; Lira, Stocks Rally - Bloomberg

Britain: Why British PM Theresa May Just Called for a Snap Election- by Joshua Keating

British voters are getting one more chance to weigh in on Brexit—and prime minister Theresa May.

May’s move is risky. The election is likely to be a referendum on her approach to EU negotiations, which may not be the approach that many of the very slim majority of Brits who favored Brexit thought they were voting for—something Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party could potentially take advantage of if it could ever get its act together. British elections have also become very hard to predict, with traditional party loyalties breaking down, the rise of new populist challengers like the UK Independence Party, and the increasingly strong Scottish National Party. The Conservatives weren’t expected to win a majority at all in the close-fought 2015 election. The Brexit victory last summer also caught many experts by surprise.

Read more: Why British PM Theresa May Just Called for a Snap Election