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Austria's presidential election re-run postponed: interior minister

Xinhua, September 12, 2016 Adjust font size:

Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka on Monday announced that the re-run of the 2016 Austrian presidential election was postponed due to a technical problem with the ballot envelope.

Speaking to reporters in a press conference, the minister said the election for president would likely be held Nov. 27 or Dec. 4, as the faulty seals on the ballot papers had not been resolved yet. However, the exact date of the vote still needs to be discussed.

The vote was expected to take place in Oct. 2, and the candidates had already started their election campaign in the country.

Postponing the election would require a change to Austrian electoral law, a task should be down by Austria's parliament soon.

Austria's Constitutional Court overturned the country presidential election earlier this year, citing irregularities of the postal ballots. The postal cards played an important role in the vote, helping the independent candidate Alexander Van Der Bellen beat the right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) candidate Norbert Hofer.

Hofer lost the vote to Van Der Bellen by less than one percentage point, and the FPO challenged the result of the vote.

According to the recent poll, Hofer would be more likely to be the next president of the country. Enditem