VIENNA, May 4 (Reuters) - The parliamentary leader of Austria's ruling conservatives, August Woeginger, stepped down on Monday moments after a court convicted him of misuse of office and handed him a seven-month suspended prison sentence and a 43,200 euro ($50,600) fine.
The case centred on Woeginger's intervention on behalf of a mayor from his party who was applying for the position of head of the local tax office in Braunau am Inn, on the German border.
The ruling could be a watershed moment in Austrian politics as it penalises officials allegedly involved in appointing a party loyalist over a more qualified candidate, in a country where two centrist parties carved up most top administrative posts between them for decades after World War Two.
Woeginger, a top figure in Chancellor Christian Stocker's Austrian People's Party (OVP), has maintained his innocence and said he never meant to exert undue influence, but also that in retrospect he would not do the same thing again.
"While I still expect to be acquitted on appeal, I will nevertheless - regardless of further legal steps - resign from my post of OVP parliamentary leader with immediate effect," Woeginger said in a statement, adding that he planned to stay on as an OVP lawmaker.
Woeginger had spoken about the mayor's candidacy to the then top civil servant in the finance ministry, OVP loyalist Thomas Schmid, who allegedly worked with two members of a committee that reviewed candidates for the job to promote the mayor's candidacy.
Those two committee members were co-defendants in the case and both were convicted of misuse of office and perjury, and handed the same seven-month suspended sentence as Woeginger along with smaller fines. Schmid turned state witness in this and other cases involving his former OVP allies.
The mayor was awarded the job over a better qualified candidate, who filed a complaint.
The ruling is a blow to the OVP, which has stayed in power since its then-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was forced to quit in 2021 over corruption allegations he denies. The OVP now heads a three-party coalition in which each member is trailing the far-right Freedom Party in opinion polls.
"It is a verdict at first instance with a very harsh sentence," Chancellor Stocker said in a statement. "Personally, I would have wished August Woeginger an acquittal."
($1 = 0.8538 euros)
(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Susan Fenton)
