Austria's presidential rerun gets stuck

A rerun of Austria's presidential election is now at risk because faulty envelope glue could render mail-in ballots invalid.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka apologized on Friday for the "technical shortcomings" of the postal votes. He has asked the printing company for a clarification on the situation.

"If the election cannot be properly carried out because of an apparent production problem, then it is my responsibility ... to quickly consider a postponement," he said in a statement.

He is expected to announce Monday whether the election will go ahead as scheduled, on October 2, or be postponed until a later date.

Alexander Van der Bellen, a former socialist, ran as an independent and an ecologist. The left-leaning candidate was declared the winner of the May 22 election by just 31,000 votes.

Norbert Hofer of the far-right, anti-immigration, Freedom Party (FPÖ) contested the results. Austria's highest court upheld Hofer's claims of procedural irregularities on July 1 and ordered the election be rerun.

The Austria Press Agency said Chancellor Christian Kern's coalition is considering postponing the election until mid-November, but that would also raise legal issues.

Delays and legal challenges

On the other hand, experts said if the problems were not properly resolved and the election was held anyway, it could potentially open the door to yet another legal challenge to the results.

Meanwhile Van der Bellen postponed the official start of his campaign on Friday until the "current debacle" is cleared up, according to his spokesman.

Austria, one of the wealthier EU countries, with a reputation for clean and efficient administration, was embarrassed by the initial election debacle. Now, with the re-election in question some critics are challenging the country's administrative competence.

The FPÖ is stridently anti-immigration and a Hofer election win would make Austria the first European country since 1945 to elect a far-right president.

While the role of the Austrian president is fundamentally ceremonial, a victory by Hofer would be a major boost to Europe's surging populist movements.

On Friday, Hofer called for the election to be held without postal ballots and for the official in charge of organization - a "well-known functionary" from the governing Social Democrats - to be fired.

"Are we really living in a banana republic?" wondered party chief Heinz-Christian Strache.

President Heinz Fischer's term ended in July.

bik/sms (AFP, AP)