http://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-election-idUSKCN0ZH4IC
Austria's
presidential runoff election must be held again, the Constitutional
Court ruled on Friday, handing the Freedom Party's narrowly defeated
candidate another chance to become the first far-right head of state in
the European Union.
The
decision comes a week after Britain delighted anti-EU groups such as the
Freedom Party (FPO) by voting to leave the bloc. Concerns about
immigration and jobs featured prominently in the Brexit referendum, as
they did in Austria's knife-edge election.
The
court said that widespread irregularities in the counting of the more
than 700,000 postal ballots cast meant there was enough doubt over the
election's outcome for a re-run to be ordered.
Norbert Hofer of
the anti-immigration FPO lost the May 22 vote to former Greens leader
Alexander Van der Bellen by less than one percentage point, or around
31,000 votes.
Whether a re-run of
the vote for the largely ceremonial post of president will have a
different outcome this time is unclear. The Brexit vote could buoy
populist sentiment or have a chilling effect on it.
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