Technical Problems May Lead to Delay in Austria's President Election - Ministry

Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka is holding discussions with the representatives of the country's political parties on whether the presidential elections rerun scheduled for October 2 should be postponed because of technical shortcomings, Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Alexander Marakovits told Sputnik on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, Sobotka admitted that some of the glue strips designed to seal postal votes came unstuck, rendering the ballots invalid. He then suggested that since elections could not be properly carried out "because of an apparent production problem," it was his responsibility to quickly consider postponement.

"[Sobotka] is in discussions at the moment with the other political parties. The experts are involved in the case," Marakovits said, adding that the decision the potential postponement was likely to be announced the following week.

The rerun of the presidential elections was announced after Austria's Constitutional Court ruled in July that ballots and voting results had been handled improperly and annulled the results of the May 22 second round, upon which independent ecologist Alexander Van der Bellen was declared winner, beating Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPO) by just 31,000 votes.

According to the survey by the OGM research company for the Kurier newspaper, in late August 38 percent of Austrians believed that Hofer would win the vote in the rerun, while 34 percent expected his Green-backed rival to become the next president.