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Austrian Greens-backed candidate kicks off presidential campaign in Vienna

Xinhua, November 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

Austrian presidential candidate Alexander Van der Bellen kicked off his electoral campaign here on Tuesday evening, warning against allowing the opposing right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) too much power.

The Greens-backed independent candidate chose the Marx Palast in Vienna as the venue to restart his campaign for the repeat runoff election to be held on Dec. 4.

In front of about 470 guests, he indicated that opponent Norbert Hofer's candidacy was secondary to the main goal of the FPO to implement party leader Heinz-Christian Strache as Chancellor of Austria.

He reiterated his warning against an Austrian exit from the European Union, noting "what we don't need are extreme experiments."

Current polls have the race to the presidency between the two candidates as too close to call, with late campaign potentially decisive in determining the victor. Endit