Austrian right-wing party launches official challenge to presidential election result

Austria's right wing Freedom Party (FPO) on Wednesday launched an official challenge against the outcome of the national presidential election held on May 22, citing "innumerable irregularities" in procedure.

FPO candidate Norbert Hofer narrowly lost to opponent Alexander Van der Bellen in the run-off of the election by just 30,863 votes. Claims by the right wing party had however circulated since that correct protocol had not always been followed, particularly with the counting of postal votes.

Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said at a press conference to mark the challenge, made on the last day possible, that had these numerous irregularities not existed, Hofer "could have become president."

He said irregularities have been confirmed to have occurred with electoral authorities at 94 of the total 117 voting districts across the country. This includes 82 districts in which postal votes had begun to be counted without the required presence of electoral officials, or were sorted or opened too early.

Other complaints made contend that envelopes for the vote cards of a wrong color were sent to persons, that were later sometimes deemed to be invalid, though other times valid, and also that in some instances non-Austrian nationals and persons aged under 16 were able to submit votes.

Further complaints were also said to have been contained in the 150-page document, but not yet made public in order to not jeopardize the investigations to be held into the alleged wrongdoing.

Strache claims over 570,000 voting cards -- each potentially representing one vote -- were affected in total.

He called the findings "more than shocking," saying both the rule of law and democracy have compelled him to challenge the election outcome.

The Constitutional Court will now assess the challenge, which will only succeed if irregularities found are deemed enough to have changed the election result. If this proves to be the case, the run-off election will be held again.

Austria Press Agency quoted a spokesperson as saying that best efforts will be made to reach an outcome before the planned swearing-in of Van der Bellen as president set for July 8, though that no guarantees could be made. Endit