VIENNA: The preliminary result of Austria’s presidential vote on Sunday showed far-right candidate Norbert Hofer ahead of independent Alexander van der Bellen, but by a margin so narrow that as-yet uncounted postal ballots were set to prove decisive, according to Interior Ministry data.
Hofer was in the lead on 51.9 percent, ahead of former Greens leader van der Bellen on 48.1 percent, the data showed. Both candidates said the result woud not be known until Monday, when a count of postal ballots was due to finish.
A SORA projection for ORF television made the race a statistical dead heat.
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 euroskeptic, anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPO) has been rising in various countries, whether they have taken in many migrants in the recent influx, like Germany and Sweden, or not, like France and Britain.
Most are still far from achieving majority support. The FPO has been in government before, serving as a coalition partner in the early 2000s when it was led by the late Joerg Haider.
But whoever wins the presidential election, it is likely to be a new high-water mark for Austria’s and Europe’s far right, all the more significant for being in a prosperous country with comparatively low, albeit rising, unemployment.
If Hofer wins, mainstream parties will also come under scrutiny for not recommending an anti-FPO vote. Many feel that would only have bolstered the FPO’s argument that it is taking on Austria’s deeply entrenched political establishment.
In Austria, the president traditionally plays a largely ceremonial role but swears in the chancellor and can dismiss the cabinet.
“I have to work for one or two years and then everybody will see that I am OK, I am not a dangerous person,” Hofer, 45, told reporters after voting in his eastern hometown of Pinkafeld.
Hofer, deputy leader of the FPO, is known as the gentler face of the party but has only recently become a household name.
Austria took in 90,000 asylum seekers last year, more than 1 percent of its population, many of them shortly after it and neighboring Germany opened their borders last autumn to a wave of migrants including refugees from Syria’s civil war.
The government has since clamped down on immigration and asylum, but that failed to slow rising support for the FPO, which was already capitalizing on widespread frustration with Austria’s two traditional parties of government.
Sunday’s run-off election comes four weeks after Hofer, 45, won the first round with 35 percent of the vote. Opinion polls had suggested his support was much lower, though they regularly show his party ahead of its rivals on more than 30 percent.
Van der Bellen, 72, who scored 21 percent in the first round, said after voting in Vienna that he was “cautiously optimistic.”
A projection will be published when the last polling stations close at 5 p.m. (1500 GMT), and the result is due to be announced after 7 p.m. A high number of postal ballots has raised the prospect of the result being unclear until Monday.
Tabloid reports of immigrants availing themselves of Austria’s generous benefits and of crimes in which immigrants have been suspects, have played into the FPO’s hands.
A Gallup poll for the Oesterreich newspaper last weekend found Hofer ahead by a 53-47 margin based on 600 people surveyed. But it was a dead heat among those who said they were certain to vote, a key factor after nearly a third of eligible voters failed to cast ballots in the first round.
Bookmakers, however, gave Hofer as favorite. Betting website bwin.com, for example, gave odds of 1.45-to-one for Hofer and 2.55-to-one for van der Bellen.
Hofer was in the lead on 51.9 percent, ahead of former Greens leader van der Bellen on 48.1 percent, the data showed. Both candidates said the result woud not be known until Monday, when a count of postal ballots was due to finish.
A SORA projection for ORF television made the race a statistical dead heat.
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 euroskeptic, anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPO) has been rising in various countries, whether they have taken in many migrants in the recent influx, like Germany and Sweden, or not, like France and Britain.
Most are still far from achieving majority support. The FPO has been in government before, serving as a coalition partner in the early 2000s when it was led by the late Joerg Haider.
But whoever wins the presidential election, it is likely to be a new high-water mark for Austria’s and Europe’s far right, all the more significant for being in a prosperous country with comparatively low, albeit rising, unemployment.
If Hofer wins, mainstream parties will also come under scrutiny for not recommending an anti-FPO vote. Many feel that would only have bolstered the FPO’s argument that it is taking on Austria’s deeply entrenched political establishment.
In Austria, the president traditionally plays a largely ceremonial role but swears in the chancellor and can dismiss the cabinet.
“I have to work for one or two years and then everybody will see that I am OK, I am not a dangerous person,” Hofer, 45, told reporters after voting in his eastern hometown of Pinkafeld.
Hofer, deputy leader of the FPO, is known as the gentler face of the party but has only recently become a household name.
Austria took in 90,000 asylum seekers last year, more than 1 percent of its population, many of them shortly after it and neighboring Germany opened their borders last autumn to a wave of migrants including refugees from Syria’s civil war.
The government has since clamped down on immigration and asylum, but that failed to slow rising support for the FPO, which was already capitalizing on widespread frustration with Austria’s two traditional parties of government.
Sunday’s run-off election comes four weeks after Hofer, 45, won the first round with 35 percent of the vote. Opinion polls had suggested his support was much lower, though they regularly show his party ahead of its rivals on more than 30 percent.
Van der Bellen, 72, who scored 21 percent in the first round, said after voting in Vienna that he was “cautiously optimistic.”
A projection will be published when the last polling stations close at 5 p.m. (1500 GMT), and the result is due to be announced after 7 p.m. A high number of postal ballots has raised the prospect of the result being unclear until Monday.
Tabloid reports of immigrants availing themselves of Austria’s generous benefits and of crimes in which immigrants have been suspects, have played into the FPO’s hands.
A Gallup poll for the Oesterreich newspaper last weekend found Hofer ahead by a 53-47 margin based on 600 people surveyed. But it was a dead heat among those who said they were certain to vote, a key factor after nearly a third of eligible voters failed to cast ballots in the first round.
Bookmakers, however, gave Hofer as favorite. Betting website bwin.com, for example, gave odds of 1.45-to-one for Hofer and 2.55-to-one for van der Bellen.
