AUSTRIA's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been dumped in the wake of an embarrassing scandal involving his far-right coalition partners.

The Austrian parliament today voted to oust Kurz and his ministers after his former vice-chancellor was allegedly caught soliciting bribes in a clandestine video sting in Ibiza.

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Kurz recently pulled the plug on his coalition with the far-right Freedom Party after a video emerged showing its leader, ex vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, apparently offering favours to a purported Russian investor.

Strache recently resigned as the party's boss after it was revealed that he was secretly filmed in a luxury villa offering state contracts to a woman posing as an oligarch's niece in exchange for political funding.

Following the scandal, Kurz also called for new elections in September.

However, opposition Social Democratic Party charged ahead with a no-confidence vote to oust him and his Austrian People's Party.

As a result, the parliament voted to dump Kurz and his ministers, paving the way for a caretaker government before a new election in four months' time - in which the young leader and his party could emerge stronger.

The vote comes a day after Kurz's party emerged strengthened in the European elections.

STRACHE SNARED

Strache was recorded in July 2017 - before taking power - telling the woman that he wanted Austria to turn away from the West and repair its relations with Russia.

When informed she had a "not entirely legal" fortune to invest in Austria, he told her to buy the country's biggest tabloid, then switch its political stance to support him.

In return, Strache advised the woman to set up a road-building company so he could award her motorway construction contracts.

Taking place in a £1,000-a-night hotel room with Strache surrounded by cigarettes and vodka, the set-up bore hallmarks of a Russian 'kompramat' operation, where spies gather compromising information on individuals which can be used later to blackmail them or destroy their reputations.

It remains unknown who was behind the operation to snare Strache.

'ALCOHOL-INDUCED MACHO TALK'

Strache resigned the morning after publication of the footage, blaming his comments on "alcohol-induced macho talk" and railing against his "targeted political assassination".

reports that Strache said his statements in the video were "catastrophic and extremely embarrassing".

Kurz then officially pulled the plug on his 17-month-old coalition with the FPO.

Strache, whose party has been one of the most successful nationalist movements in Europe, securing more than a quarter of the vote, denies doing anything illegal.

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But Kurz pledged a thorough investigation into any alleged wrongdoing, and said that he would ask President Alexander Van der Bellen to sack the FPO's interior minister, Herbert Kickl, because as FPO chairman in 2017 he was responsible for party finances.

However, the FPO reacted by withdrawing all its ministers from the coalition, throwing the government into chaos.

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