VIENNA, (Reuters) – Austria’s presidential election runoff must be held again, the Constitutional Court ruled yesterday, handing the Freedom Party’s narrowly defeated candidate another chance to become the first far-right head of state in the European Union.
The verdict comes a week after Britain delighted anti-EU groups by voting to leave the bloc. Concerns about immigration and jobs featured prominently in that referendum, as they did in Austria’s knife-edge election.
Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration and anti-EU Freedom Party (FPO) lost the May 22 vote to former Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen by less than one percentage point, or around 31,000 votes, in the race for what is largely a ceremonial position.
The court found more than twice that number of postal ballots had been affected by breaches of the electoral code, forcing it to order a re-run. Irregularities included ballots being processed before the official start of the count the morning after the election, and counts being carried out in the absence of party observers, often because officials were racing to provide a result quickly.
Ruling on a challenge brought by FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache, the court found no proof that the result had been manipulated, but the possibility that it might have been affected was enough for a challenge to succeed.
The re-run will reopen a debate that split Austria almost evenly, pitting town against country, and blue-collar workers worried about immigration and falling living standards against the more highly educated.
How the outcome might change in a European political climate coloured by the Brexit vote is unclear. Widespread frustration with traditional parties of power has been a feature of both votes, and fuelled support for anti-immigration groups.
Austria was swept up in Europe’s migration crisis last autumn when it and Germany opened their borders to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere, only to reverse course as public opinion turned.
