Austrian court overturns presidential election result

It is possible that Britain’s referendum decision on June 23 to leave the European Union could also turn Austria’s future membership into an election issue. The court questioned about 90 witnesses from various election districts and discovered widespread cases of rule violations in counting mail ballots.

It upheld a challenge brought by the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) against its candidate Norbert Hofer’s narrow defeat in May’s presidential election.

Those parties had already hailed Hofer’s strong showing in May as proof of a surge in pan-European anti-EU sentiment.

If Hofer were to secure a win in the runoff, he would be the only far-right leader in an European Union country, prompting fears he would also seek a referendum to remove Austria from the soon to be 27-state bloc. The party had alleged that there were voting “irregularities” in 94 of the 117 total electoral constituencies in the country, reports Kronen Zeitung.

While the court established no instances of fraud, the judges said that the improprieties alone were enough to annul the vote because of the tight margin of victory.

 “Elections are the foundation of our democracy”.

Following the first round of elections, a German TV program published a picture of a schnitzel in the shape of a swastika on its Facebook page with the comment “what’s your problem, costly neighbors?” and “Austrians like to vote for whom resembles their schnitzel: as level and brown as possible”. It also gives Hofer another chance to win the election. If someone in the United Kingdom needs the phone-number of our Supreme Court: “+43-1-531220”, tweeted Martin Weiss, Austria’s ambassador to Israel.

Van der Bellen had been due to be sworn in later this month.

The court’s decision means Fischer will be replaced temporarily by three parliamentary officials, including Hofer, until the new election is held.

Frauke Petry, head of Alternative for Germany, one of many other populist groups on the rise in Europe, calling Friday’s ruling a “big opportunity” for Hofer.

Growing unease toward immigrants and its counterpart – liberal unease toward increasingly hateful and nationalist rhetoric – have spread across the “pond” (Atlantic) as the USA faces the reality that business mogul Donald Trump may become the next president.

Austrian Presidential candidates, Alexander Van der Bellen, left, and Norbert Hofer, right. But he ended up losing to Van der Bellen when the record 700,000 absentee ballots were counted a day later.

The decision sets in motion what is likely to be a hard-fought and nail-biting new summer election battle between van der Bellen and Hofer.