Free Republic

Vienna (AFP) - Austria's long and ugly presidential campaign drew to a close Saturday, with the far-right aiming to emulate Donald Trump and Brexit campaigners by dealing a hammer-blow to Vienna's centrist establishment. A victory on Sunday for Norbert Hofer from the anti-immigration and EU-critical Freedom Party (FPOe) would make him Europe's first far-right elected president since World War II. The presidency is largely ceremonial but it would be another triumph for populist politics a month after Donald Trump's US election victory and barely five months since the British chose to leave the European Union. The election comes on the...

Austria's highest court has annulled the result of the presidential election narrowly lost by the far-right candidate of the Freedom Party. The party had challenged the result, saying that postal votes had been improperly handled. The Freedom Party candidate, Norbert Hofer, lost the election to the former leader of the Greens, Alexander Van der Bellen, by less than a percentage point. The election will now be re-run. Announcing the decision, Gerhard Holzinger, head of the Constitutional Court, said: "The challenge brought by Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache against the 22 May election... has been upheld.

Austria’s constitutional court has annulled the result of the country’s presidential elections a week before the winning candidate was due to be sworn into office. The court president, Gerhart Holzinger, announced on Friday that the run-off vote between Norbert Hofer of the populist rightwing Freedom party and Green-backed Alexander Van der Bellen would have to be repeated across the whole country after an investigation had revealed irregularities in the count of the vote in several constituencies. In May, Hofer had lost out to Van der Bellen in a knife-edge election, with a majority of only 30,863 votes. While the Austrian...

Five voting districts are being investigated in Austria over postal vote irregularities in the close-run presidential election, the interior minister has announced. Allegations of fraud arose from the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) of defeated candidate Norbert Hofer, after the Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen just scrapped ahead with 31,000 votes when the postal ballot was counted. The Villach branch of FPÖ lodged a complaint with the country’s corruption prosecutor over the Carinthia council counting votes on Sunday and not Monday like in the rest of the country. Speaking on Austrian TV, Freedom Party leader Heinz Christan Strache said, “The...

Initial results showed the presidential election run-off was neck and neck Independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen has 'emerged as winner' Norbert Hofer, from the Freedom Party, is said to have conceded defeat Hofer used a pre-election event to deliver an anti-Muslim message to voters Austria's Far-Right presidential candidate Norbert Hofer has conceded defeat in his election bid to become the EU's first anti-immigrant leader. The EU had been on tenterhooks this morning as Austria waited to see whether Hofer had won an election run-off against Independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen. Projected results last night had put both...

Mr Hofer led narrowly after Sunday's election but postal votes gave Mr Van der Bellen victory by 50.3% to 49.7%. Mr Van der Bellen campaigned on a pro-EU platform, backed by the Green Party. Mr Hofer, of the Freedom Party, tapped into anti-EU sentiment and fears about rising numbers of asylum seekers. He conceded victory on his Facebook page. Mr Hofer said it was a sad day and that he would have gladly served as president.

<p>Vienna (AFP) - Austrian far-right hopes of winning a presidential runoff remained on hold Sunday as the candidates were neck-and-neck in a battle closely watched by the EU, which is struggling to contain a surge of anti-immigrant parties.</p> <p>A win would see Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPOe) become the European Union's first far-right head of state.</p>

One month ago, pro-European voices in Austria, and all of Europe, were suddenly muted when in the first round of the Austrian presidential election, Norbert Hofer head of Austria Freedom Party (FPO), described as a "Euroskeptic, right-wing, anti-immigrant party" crushed his opposition buoyed by a migration crisis that has heightened fears about employment and security across the continent, and gathered a whopping 35% of the vote leaving the other five legacy candidates far behind.

According to the interior ministry's final count of votes cast at polling-stations (in German), Mr Hofer took 51.9% to 48.1% for Mr Van der Bellen. But ORF public TV's projection (in German), which is usually considered reliable, has both men on 50%.

Austrians have headed to the polle to elect a new president in run-of elections. Early results by one polling institute gave far-right candidate Norbert Hofer a marginal lead at almost 51 percent. Norbert Hofer was projected to become Austria's first far-right president with 50.9 per cent of the votes, according to pollsters of the ARGE Wahlen group say. His lead over Green Party rival Alexander van der Bellen remains too narrow to call a definite winner. Former Green party chief van der Bellen was projected to gain 49.1 per cent of the ballots. ARGE said they were fairly certain that...