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Far-right candidate Norbert Hofer has lost Austria's presidential election. His campaign manager said he had conceded victory to independent candidate, Alexander Van der Bellen. The Austrian presidency is largely ceremonial but the vote had been seen as a sign of how well populist candidates might do in upcoming elections in the European Union. The result is sure to be welcomed by establishment parties and officials in the EU. The election was a re-run of May's poll which suffered irregularities. Former Green Party head Mr Van der Bellen had a clear lead, according to projections.

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 Chancellor Christian Kern has denied that Austria is a country full of racists, ahead of the upcoming presidential election which could see the far-right candidate win. People will vote because of what they are afraid of, said Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern, adding that Austria is not a country full of racists. He was commenting on the upcoming presidential election in which the far-right candidate, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) could win. In an interview with Italian TV station RAI 3, Kern explained that not everybody who decides to vote for Hofer is necessarily a supporter of far-right...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Far-right parties in some European countries are winning over Jewish voters by exploiting fears about militant Islamists and mainstream parties must do much more to address Europeans' security concerns, a Jewish leader said on Tuesday. Boosted by Europe's migrant crisis, Norbert Hofer of Austria's anti-immigration Freedom Party only narrowly lost the country's presidential election on May 22. He would have been the first far-right head of state in the European Union. "I understand that, most probably, a not insignificant part of the (Jewish) community here voted for Hofer for the presidency," the head of the Conference of...

Hamburg, Germany — WE Germans can never escape the trauma of our recent history. That has rarely been clearer than today, as we look around our Continent and across the Atlantic. There are almost too many differences to mention between what happened in the 1930s over here and what is going on today. And it goes without saying that Donald J. Trump and Austria’s Norbert Hofer are not Adolf Hitler. Still, Germany’s slide into a popular embrace of authoritarianism in the 1930s offers a frame for understanding how liberal democracies can suddenly turn toward anti-liberalism. Setting aside debate about whether...

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...

As the days go by, the results of the Austrian presidential election get more suspicious. According to the official results, the far-left candidate Alexander Van der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer from the Freedom Party of Austria by just 31,000 votes, 50.35% to 49.65%. The lights were already blinking red on the day the results were being released. Writing for Breitbart soon thereafter, James Delingpole didn't mince words and called the election a sham: We were continually assured by the left-liberal media how awful it would be if the (supposed) "far-right" candidate Norbert Hofer won. But actually the victory of Green...

They called it an “election gimmick” and a “campaign gag”, but the new president-elect of Austria once presided over his party’s campaign that declared: “Anyone who loves Austria must be shit”. Alexander Van der Bellen – who appears to have defeated the Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer by around just 30,000 of nearly five million votes – has a track record of opposing the nation state as a concept, and his own as a reality. In 2007, while he was leader of the Austrian Greens, the party published a picture of a dog with the Austrian flag in its mouth. The...

<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>

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.

More than 260,000 people in Austria have signed a petition urging the Austrian government to leave the European Union (EU). According to reports on Thursday, as many as 261,159 Austrians signed the petition. The number in total represents 4.12 percent of the country's electorate. Since under the country's regulations the threshold for calling a debate on a potential referendum is 100,000 people, the Austrian parliament must discuss a referendum on leaving the EU. The call for leaving the EU was most popular in the regions of Lower Austria and in Carinthia where 5.18 percent and 4.85 percent of potential voters,...

Work has started on a new 'border control centre' on the Brenner Pass Minister hinted it may include a barrier like the one on Slovenian border European Commission 'very concerned if these plans were to materialise' Barrier would deal another major blow to the passport-free Schengen zone The European Union today said it is 'very concerned' that Austria may be planning to build a fence on its border with Italy over fears of a new migrant influx. Austrian Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil announced plans to introduce border controls at the Brenner Pass crossing from June 1 as part of...

A couple in Austria with nine children, including two who are severely disabled, are allegedly requesting IVF treatment so they can have more. The story has caused a heated debate in Austria, with some criticising the request from the family - who are originally from Afghanistan - as they already received around €5,682 a month in benefits.

Give it a few years and the police will be telling women attacked by Muslims to wear hijabs and then burqas. This is how Islamic law happened originally. It's happening all over again in countries being invaded by Islam. The incident happened when the young woman, identified only by her first name Sabina, who lives in the capital Vienna had been waiting for a train on the S6 line at the city's main Westbahnhof station.

In the latest shocking incident a 27-year-old woman was allegedly assaulted while waiting at a bus station in the village of Grinzing on the outskirts of the capital Vienna. She said: "He was Arabic looking and had a cord around his waist instead of a belt. “All he could say was ‘sex, sex, sex’ and then he pulled out a condom from his trouser pocket.” The attack comes just days after Norbert Hofer, candidate of the anti-migrant Freedom Party (FPO), took pole position in the presidential elections.

An illegal migrant with a long criminal history has brutally murdered a 54-year-old woman on a Vienna street while she was on her way to work. News headlines in Austria Wednesday morning were focused on one topic, the brutal killing of a 54-year-old woman by an illegal migrant from Kenya. The woman was walking down the street at 2:30am on her way to work with a colleague when the man, armed with an iron bar, bludgeoned her to death. The two women worked as cleaners for so-called gambling cafes reports OE24 .

A 20-year-old asylum seeker from Iraq confessed to raping a 10-year-old boy at a public swimming pool in Vienna. The Iraqi said the rape was a "sexual emergency" resulting from "excess sexual energy." Those who dare to link spiraling crime to Muslim mass migration are being silenced by the guardians of Austrian multiculturalism. According to data compiled by the Austrian Interior Ministry, nearly one out of three asylum seekers in Vienna was accused of committing crimes in 2015. North African gangs fighting for control over drug trafficking were responsible for roughly half of the 15,828 violent crimes — rapes, robberies,...

Austria’s Social Democratic Chancellor stood down in a shock announcement this morning amid collapsing support for traditional parties in the country, in a move which has been called “a beautiful day for Austria” by his insurgent nationalist opponents. Socialist-left Chancellor Werner Faymann’s Social Democratic Party of Austria failed to even make it to the second round of voting in last month’s presidential elections, as citizens voted overwhelmingly for candidates from alternative political movements. Just one in ten Austrians voted for the party in government. After the count, only Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party of Austria and Alexander Van der...

Austria could elect the European Union's first far-right head of state on Sunday, with support for Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer buoyed by a migration crisis that has heightened fears about employment and security. Opinion polls suggest the presidential run-off between Hofer and former Greens leader Alexander van der Bellen will be close. A far-right victory would resonate across the 28-member EU, where migration driven by conflict and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere has become a major political issue. Support for groups like the eurosceptic, anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPO) has been rising in various countries, whether they have...