Austrian Election Could Produce First EU Far-Right Head of State
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Austria could elect the European Union's first far-right head of state on Sunday, with support for Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer buoyed by a migration crisis that has heightened fears about employment and security.
Opinion polls suggest the presidential race between Hofer and former Greens leader Alexander van der Bellen will be close-run. A far-right victory would resonate throughout the 28-member bloc where migration driven by conflict and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere has become a major political issue.
Austria took in 90,000 asylum seekers last year, more than 1 percent of its population, many of them shortly after it and neighboring Germany threw open their borders last autumn to a wave of migrants including refugees from Syria's civil war, Reuters reported.
Sunday's run-off election comes four weeks after Hofer unexpectedly won the first round with 35 percent of the vote.
The president traditionally plays a largely ceremonial role but swears in the chancellor, can dismiss the cabinet and is commander in chief of the military.
Whoever wins, the election is likely to be a new high-water mark for Europe's resurgent far right, all the more significant for being in a relatively prosperous country with comparatively low, albeit rising, unemployment.
It will also indicate whether mainstream parties were right not to close ranks and call for an anti-Freedom Party (FPO) vote, with many feeling it would only have bolstered the FPO's argument that it is taking on a hostile political establishment.
