Re-vote of Rigged Austrian presidential elections now delayed

Sunday, 11 September 2016

Austrian conspiracy theorists have had a bumper year in 2016.

First, in the April 24 presidential election, the frontrunning candidate of Austria's anti-immigrant Freedom Party, Norbert Hofer, who many said was virtually guaranteed to become the central European country's first "right-wing" president, mysteriously lost when some 31,000 mailed-in ballots tipped the vote against him in the last second, handing the election to his far more moderate, and pro-European challenged, Van der Bellen. Hofer’s defeat sparked widespread relief across the ranks of Europe's unlected establishment bureaucrats, as his victory would mark yet another significant moment in the advance of nationalism across EU member states. As Newsweek put it, "in the wake of Brexit, it would be seen as another defeat for the European political establishment."

Accusations immediately emerged that the vote had been rigged, with the traditional response that these are merely the deranged ramblings of sore loser "nationalists." Only... that was not the case, and in July Austria's Constitutional Court ruled that the presidential runoff election must be held again, after it found "widespread" voting fraud, handing yet another victory to "conspiracy theorists" everywhere.

Then, following the surge in terrorist attacks in France and Germany in July, an August Gallup polls showed that Hofer's lead over his opponent Van der Belden had continued to grow, showing the midpoint of the wide range of support for Hofer at 52 percent—one point higher than a poll in early July—versus 48 percent for Van der Bellen.

At this point the establishment was clearly panicking, which may have indirectly led to the lastest fiasco surrounding what has already become the most scandalous presidential election in recent European history, an election that has little practical - but dramatic and widespread symbolic - value for Europe.

As AFP reports, it is now virtually certain that the election scheduled for October 2, and which Hofer will not lose this time, will not be held after all, as an "embarrassing postponement of Austria's high-stakes October 2 presidential election looked all but inevitable Saturday, because of technical problems involving glue failing to stick on postal votes."

More:
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/30163/53/

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IZAKOVIC