Austrians are going to the polls today in general elections expected to return young conservative leader Sebastian Kurz to office.

The first Kurz cabinet was brought down after officials from his junior coalition partner, the right wing FPO party, were filmed promising access to people presenting themselves as Russian businessmen. The so-called Ibiza scandal didn’t affect the popularity of the parties much, and Kurz remains high above the challengers with 35 percent of the support while FPO and the social-democrats are roughly even in second and third place with about 20 percent, polls show.

The V4 news agency reports that there is an increasing number of signs suggesting that the FPO will part ways with its former Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache. FPO’s leading politicians claim that Strache, who got involved in a corruption scandal due to the Ibiza video, and later received money from the party’s funds, has caused more damage to the party’s image than raising it prior to the Sunday elections. Even Strache’s fellow party members have turned against him as the elections drew near, which is due to the fact that a bodyguard of the former Vice-Chancellor has collected incriminating materials, photos and invoices in the past five years against Strache and other politicians of the Freedom Party, then handed these over to the Austrian press. These revealed that the Vienna FPO has transferred 10 thousand euros every month to the account of Strache and his partner’s animal protection foundation for years, and since his resignation in May, the former Vice-Chancellor has taken 42.000 euros from the party’s funds for private use.

The Austrian police arrested the whistle-blower bodyguard earlier this week, as there is a suspicion that he was in contact with the Vienna lawyer who had devised the Ibiza video leading to the dissolution of the OVP-SPO coalition and the resignation of Strache. Austrian news portal Kurier.at, referring to information from the internal circles of the FPO, wrote the following on Wednesday: Strache “is history,” and he “causes more damage to the party than benefits”. Norbert Hofer, who was re-elected by a sweeping majority at the 14 September election session of the Freedom Party, has defended his former Vice-Chancellor still on Tuesday.

The same criminal network that made the Ibiza video is behind the accusations against Heinz-Christian Strache. For more than five years, they work with great energy and a clear intent to seriously damage or even destroy the FPO. This is an attack against democracy in Austria, he wrote in his Facebook post on Tuesday. However, Hofer added later that as a party president, he will thoroughly investigate the accusations against Strache, but if the accusations regarding the overspending of party funds prove to be correct, “I will not hesitate to draw the necessary conclusions.” Kurier.at believes that the Freedom Party will get rid of Strache right after the Sunday elections, in the first days of October.