Austrian far-right challenges election result

VIENNA, Austria – Austria’s anti-immigration Freedom Party plunged the country into uncharted political territory Wednesday, June 8, with a legal challenge to last month’s presidential election, just 4 weeks before the winner is due to be sworn in.

“We are not sore losers. This is about protecting the very foundations of democracy… The extent of irregularities is more than terrifying,” FPOe leader Heinz-Christian Strache told a news conference.

“You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to have a bad gut feeling about this whole election… Without these glitches and irregularities (FPOe candidate Norbert) Hofer could have become president.”

Alexander Van der Bellen, an independent backed by the Greens, defeated Hofer in May 22’s runoff by just 30,863 votes, narrowly preventing Austria becoming the first European Union country with a far-right president.

Preliminary results released the evening of the vote had given a narrow lead to gun enthusiast Hofer, 54, presented as the friendly face of the FPOe but who is highly critical of Islam and the EU.

However after some 700,000 postal votes – a record number – were counted, Van der Bellen, 72, was declared the winner of the largely ceremonial but coveted presidency the next day.

‘Attack on democracy’

The FPOe has cried foul – Strache’s popular Facebook page has been inundated with conspiracy theories – and authorities are already investigating several complaints.

However, they concern postal votes being opened for counting too early and are not thought likely to change the result.

But Strache said the FPOe has documented problems in 94 of Austria’s 117 constituencies, including postal votes being opened too early or “non-Austrians” or under-16s casting ballots.

The constitutional court has 4 weeks to decide if the incidents in the FPOe’s 150-page submission stand up and if so, whether they could change the result.

This could make for a tense wait with Van der Bellen set to be sworn in on July 8.

In theory the election could be repeated in part or in full. The challenge is the first of its kind, although local Austrian elections have been challenged – and successfully.

If the court does order new elections, current President Heinz Fischer will be replaced on an interim basis by parliament’s speaker and two deputy speakers – one of whom is Hofer.

Expert Thomas Hofer said that even if the court agrees that irregularities took place, these will not be enough to alter the outcome – and that Strache, 46, knows this full well.

“The FPOe is not doing this hoping to win. They want to reinforce their core anti-establishment message by claiming there is a conspiracy to prevent the FPOe winning the presidency,” he told Agence France-Presse.

The left-leaning Falter weekly, in an article published before the expected challenge was announced, agreed and went further, accusing a disingenuous FPOe of an “attack on democracy”.

Norbert Hofer said Wednesday that the documented irregularities represented a “blatant breach of the law” and that the legal challenge’s chances of success were “exorbitantly high”.

“We are talking here about half a million votes that were not properly processed,” he told reporters.

Populist trend

Mirroring populists elsewhere, the FPOe has tapped into unease about immigration and the faltering economy to win support principally from poorer, less educated voters but also across the board.

Austria last year saw 90,000 people claim asylum, the second-highest number per capita in the EU, while around 10 times as many passed through at the height of Europe’s migrant crisis.

The FPOe, whose entry into government in 2000 under then-leader Joerg Haider caused an outcry in Europe and Israel, is also sitting pretty ahead to the next general elections, due in 2018.

It is leading opinion polls with more than 30 percent while the two centrist parties in the governing coalition look set to fall short of a majority, despite being headed by popular new Chancellor Christian Kern since mid-May. – Simon Sturdee and Nina Lamparski, AFP / Rappler.com