Monday, August 29, 2016

Presidential Rave 2.0

Every six years Austria votes a new President. The last elections took place in April and May 2016. Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) won the first round, but was narrowly defeated by the Green-backed Alexander Van der Bellen in the run-off. After an appeal by the Freedom Party's leader the results were invalidated by the Constitutional Court due to formal irregularities (several counting centres had begun to process postal votes on the eve of the election rather than on the day after, as Austrian electoral law requires) only one week before Van der Bellen was due to be sworn into office. The revote will take place on October 2, and the election campaign has just restarted... Yesterday there were several concerts in different locations, a rally and an after party (under the title "presidential rave 2.0") organised by the supporters of Van der Bellen. I happened to pass by one of the concerts in Stephansplatz.

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