Austrian Elections & Politics 2.0 (Presidential runoff re-vote: 4 Dec. 2016)

[MaxQue]

What in the living hell is this

http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/chronik/Fluechtling-missbraucht-Zwolfjaehrige/240516617

A man god 20 months of Jail for abusing a child, what kind of sick justice system is this?

Could someone explain to me why he cant be sentenced to a correct sentance, fitting the crime.

Underage criminal system.

[Tender Branson]

Bloomberg has a good English summary on the runoff court case:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-21/austrian-presidential-victor-now-a-question-for-the-courts-q-a

[Cranberry]

What in the living hell is this

http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/chronik/Fluechtling-missbraucht-Zwolfjaehrige/240516617

A man god 20 months of Jail for abusing a child, what kind of sick justice system is this?

Could someone explain to me why he cant be sentenced to a correct sentance, fitting the crime.

He was, as per this article, seventeen when comitting the crime, thus he was put before a juvenile court and sentenced according to the laws applying to juvenile offenders. That is standard usus in Austria.

[Tender Branson]

A new ATV poll shows weak support for an EU "Auxit":

"Do you favour or oppose a referendum on the Auxit ?"

38% favour
55% oppose

"If there were a referendum on the Auxit, how would you vote ?"

28% Auxit
53% Remain

http://derstandard.at/2000039571776/Oesterreicher-gegen-Volksabstimmung-ueber-EU-Austritt

[Tender Branson]

In today's court hearings about the runoff challenge, the FPÖ's case almost imploded when witnesses of another 6 districts testified before the judges. In some cases, the judges called the vote counting in these districts "exemplary" or "well done, according to the election law" and even the FPÖ's election commission members agreed that there were no irregularities there, not to mention any vote counting fraud ...

http://derstandard.at/2000039592162/Wahlanfechtung-Freudige-Ueberraschung-ueber-korrektes-Vorgehen

[Zanas]

It was never higher than 0.1 %, honestly.

[Omega21]

Any news on the hearings? Couldnt find anything new..


Do you expect FPO to rise even more because I think the loss of the Presidential election coupled with them still being in the oppostion, they always have the goverment to blame for everything starting from Monthly handouts to Children being raped almost weekly now..


Could really make some people vote for them as nothing is more important to people than Security, especially for families.

This post made me think about it: http://www.krone.at/Nachrichten/13-Jaehrige_missbraucht_Bad_sperrt_Fluechtlinge_aus-No_entry-Story-516573

Plus, look at the comments:

Rot und Grün wer schützt unsere Kinder vor jenen die ihr gerufen habt, denkt ihr überhaupt darüber nach!

6200 likes 50 dislikes

Seems like a daily occurence now..

[Tender Branson]

Today was the last day of the court hearings for this week. Over the next week or so, the judges will sit together and discuss what they have heard so far.

Then next week, the court will hear party and VdB/Hofer campaign representatives and a few representatives from the federal election commission (probably between Wed. and Friday).

The 14 judges then will once again discuss what they have heard and announce a verdict by July 6 (two days before the planned VdB inauguration).

[Tender Branson]

President-elect Van der Bellen (Greens) has declined to travel to Slovenia with the outgoing President Heinz Fischer, who invited VdB to join him for the country's 25th anniversary celebrations.

Van der Bellen did so out of respect for the coming Constitutional Court ruling on the runoff.

http://derstandard.at/2000039576799/Van-der-Bellen-reist-nicht-mit-Fischer-nach-Slowenien

[Tender Branson]

New Gallup poll today (June 22-23, n=600):



Also:

"Do you think there were enough voting irregularities to impact the overall runoff result ?"

63% No
27% Yes

"Would you like to have a re-vote of the runoff ?"

64% No
28% Yes

http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Die-OeVP-stuerzt-auf-20-ab/240774328

[reciprocity]

I love Austrian pollsters. They seem very in depth in what they poll. FPO should just except it and move on. vdB won it.

[DL]

I gather the poll didnt ask Austrians how they would vote now if the Presidential runoff between Ven der Bellen and Hofer was re-run?

[Tender Branson]

I gather the poll didnt ask Austrians how they would vote now if the Presidential runoff between Ven der Bellen and Hofer was re-run?

Not in this one but 2 weeks ago they did:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=221414.msg5111286#msg5111286

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ jumped on the EU-exit train as well today, calling for an "Öxit" (or "Auxit").

SPÖ-Chancellor Kern ruled out such a referendum.

[Tender Branson]

The new Gallup poll also shows that if Sebastian Kurz (the Foreign and Integration Minister) would lead the ÖVP, he'd beat SPÖ-Chancellor Kern by 54-46 in a (hypothetical) direct vote for Chancellor.

Kurz, who is the 2nd most popular politician in Austria (after the President) with a 70% approval rating, is likely to take over the ÖVP ahead of the next federal elections.

He'd probably boost the ÖVP from the current 20% to at least 25% or more ...

[Tender Branson]

More from the new ATV poll, which used a very aggressive question wording:

"Do you believe the Presidential runoff between VdB and Hofer was deliberately rigged to the disadvantage of Norbert Hofer ?"

14% Yes, strongly agree
19% Yes, somewhat agree => 33% YES
25% No, somewhat disagree
35% No, strongly disagree => 60% NO

Among FPÖ-voters: 72% think the election was deliberately rigged (33% strongly agree)

http://derstandard.at/2000039726733/Mehrheit-der-Oesterreicher-mit-demokratischem-System-unzufrieden

[Tender Branson]

Chancellor Christian Kern was officially elected SPÖ-leader today with 97% of the delegates at their convention in Vienna:



In his 90-minute "welcome" speech to the delegates he talked about how he'll work to revitalise the SPÖ, that he wants to continue the SPÖVP coalition until 2018, how the SPÖ should try to win back voters who switched over to the FPÖ, that the SPÖ should prevent the FPÖ from taking power at the federal level, but to work with them on the local/state level. He called the FPÖ an "incompetent party" that fu**ed things up whenever they were in power, which is the reason why he does not want the SPÖ to enter a coalition with them on the national level. He also talked about renewable energy, climate change etc. and how to create more jobs in the next years and that the SPÖ is the party "most competent" when it comes to the economy (a hit directed at the ÖVP).

Kern got standing ovations from the delegates after his speech.

http://derstandard.at/2000039817243/Christian-Kern-mit-viel-Jubel-zum-SPOe-Parteichef-gewaehlt

[Omega21]

Chancellor Christian Kern was officially elected SPÖ-leader today with 97% of the delegates at their convention in Vienna:



In his 90-minute "welcome" speech to the delegates he talked about how he'll work to revitalise the SPÖ, that he wants to continue the SPÖVP coalition until 2018, how the SPÖ should try to win back voters who switched over to the FPÖ, that the SPÖ should prevent the FPÖ from taking power at the federal level, but to work with them on the local/state level. He called the FPÖ an "incompetent party" that fu**ed things up whenever they were in power, which is the reason why he does not want the SPÖ to enter a coalition with them on the national level. He also talked about renewable energy, climate change etc. and how to create more jobs in the next years and that the SPÖ is the party "most competent" when it comes to the economy (a hit directed at the ÖVP).

Kern got standing ovations from the delegates after his speech.

http://derstandard.at/2000039817243/Christian-Kern-mit-viel-Jubel-zum-SPOe-Parteichef-gewaehlt

Isnt the unemployment rising across Austria, especially in Wien? xd

Not to mention the massive debt accumulation which has risen 20% from 68 to 88% of Gdp since 2008 ..

[Tender Branson]

Isnt the unemployment rising across Austria, especially in Wien? xd

Not to mention the massive debt accumulation which has risen 20% from 68 to 88% of Gdp since 2008 ..

Yes, but that's not 100% the SPÖ's fault, the ÖVP is to blame as well: SPÖVP are extremely lethargic on the economy and jobs, hurting the businesses wherever they can instead of helping them. Not to mention the failed immigration policy, which means 90.000 asylum seekers will be added to the welfare rolls, because they cannot work. And those who can, will be added to the unemployment rolls because almost no Austrian business owner will hire analphabets from AfPak. Plus, the unemployment is rising steadily not only because of the foreigners streaming in and SPÖVP's economic incompetence/stagnation, but also because a lot of women are now streaming into the labour market and the Austrian businesses simply cannot generate 120.000 jobs a year (90K foreigners and 30K citizens) ...

[Tender Branson]

New ATV poll:

35% FPÖ
24% SPÖ
18% ÖVP
14% Greens
  7% NEOS
  1% TS
  1% Others

http://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20160625_OTS0012/atv-oesterreich-trend-zur-bp-wahl-fast-34-der-fpoe-waehlerinnen-glauben-an-wahlbetrug

[Tender Branson]

Both the Greens and the FPÖ are already preparing for a possible Presidential runoff re-vote in October, in case the Constitutional Court orders one.

Also, the Interior Ministry is preparing for one as well and President Heinz Fischer said a re-vote "would be no tragedy for the country".

[Tender Branson]

New runoff re-vote poll (Gallup, June 22-23, n=600):

50.6% VdB (actual runoff result: 50.3%)
49.4% Hofer (actual runoff result: 49.7%)

http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Kopf-an-Kopf-bei-Neuwahl/241288621

[Tender Branson]

derstandard.at is reporting that the Constitutional Court might also re-evaluate the whole election law, a procedure which could take 8 (!) months and then either rule it constitutional or not.

In the meantime, the 3 Presidents of the Austrian Parliament (one of them Norbert Hofer, FPÖ) would serve jointly as acting Austrian President ...

[rob in cal]

   I really hope Hofer gets to serve as one of the three acting presidents for awhile. For the simple reason that when some people mention how Austria almost elected a Nazi in the election, we can say please calm down, he's currently one of the acting presidents, his party is in two state governments, his party was in the national government in the early 2000's, and the whole sky is falling scenario of an eminent 4th Reich about to happen, did not take place.

[Tender Branson]

Today, the lawyers from VdB and Hofer as well as the head of the Austrian federal election commission gave their closing arguments in front of the Constitutional Court judges.

The Hofer lawyers argued that there was room for enough manipulations that the election could be invalidated and reminded the court that they usually ruled very strictly in the past even on the mere possibility of manipulations, not actual ones. The Green lawyers on the other hand argued that the FPÖ's case is based on conspiracy theories which would have required a huge, concerted criminal energy throughout Austria to "rig" the election in favour of Hofer. Robert Stein from the Austrian federal election commission defended his agency and said that while small errors have been made, the huge amount of postal votes was only able to be counted by pre-selecting them already on Sunday, but everything was well within the law.

The judges were really interested in what they had to say and asked many questions on the technicalities, the possible early release of results into Twitter/Facebook etc. before the polls have closed and so on and one judge (Schnizer) was especially zealous with his questions.

Apparently, the judges want to hear more and set another hearing (date will be released later).