EU shock: Hofer ahead in Austrian polls

Hofer narrowly lost the initial presidential election in May, but the result was voided due to “irregularities”.

Already in the first round in April came the surprise: Norbert Hofer qualified with 36 percent ahead of Alexander Van der Bellen, with only 21 percent for the now-voided run-off on 22 May, the Guardian reported.

In July Hofer had widened his lead in a Gallup poll that Reuters cited, ahead of a repeat election for the Austrian presidency. The poll published by the Oesterreich newspaper showed the midpoint of the wide range of support for Hofer at 52 percent – one point higher than a poll in early July found – versus 48 percent for van der Bellen.

In a rousing speech during the re-run, Hofer encouraged Austrians to take pride themselves: “We must also be proud of being Austrians. To love Austria, however, must never be to deprecate other countries. This has been underestimated by the government for too long.”

Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of the FPÖ, said his candidate would be “a counterweight to the encrusted system”, and added: “It is not a representative of the past, but of the future. He is one who represents the interests against Brussels.”

If Hofer wins, he will be Austria’s first nationalist President since president Wilhelm Miklas.

In France, the presidential vote is just months away and the country’s National Front party is polling strongly. As the country struggles with a refugee crisis and the threat of terrorism, almost all parties have adopted stances similar to that of the National Front.

France’s youngest MP and National Front member, Marion Marechal Le Pen, sent a message of support in German to Hofer:

Lieber @norbertghofer, ich wünsche Dir für diesen Sonntag große Erfolge. Du hast die Unterstützung von Patrioten aus aller Welt ! #bpw2016 pic.twitter.com/GqsMAjjf9U

— Marion Le Pen (@Marion_M_Le_Pen) December 3, 2016

The young Le Pen said she would like to see all European countries participate in the war on the Islamic State. She added that sadly French politics were partly reponsible for the advances if ISIS.

In August, Hofer said he would call for Austria to leave the EU if Turkey joined the bloc. He also called for a ban on the naturalization of Turkish people in Austria if they didn’t relinquish their first citizenship.

Hofer has stressed Austrian cooperation with Russia, as he makes a “strong economy” his number one priority.

He has slammed sanctions imposed against Russia during the Ukrainian crisis and the Crimean referendum on joining Russia: “I don’t think sanctions are now useful for keeping peace,” the presidential candidate said, adding that they don’t solve problems and it’s better to look for a diplomatic way out.

Sanctions against Moscow should be lifted, he said, “because they have not moved anything politically,” yet “have affected the economy and destroyed jobs.”

Austria has officially been without a president since July 8, when its previous leader, Heinz Fischer, stepped down.

Donald Trump’s victory has eroded the fear Austrians may have had about openly supporting his candidacy, Höfer told the New York Times.

“With Trump’s victory, that barrier has loosened a bit,” Hofer explained.

Critics have tried to smear the Freedom Party and its candidate as a group of Nazis, as they had done to the charismatic leader Jörg Haider who was killed in a car accident.

But his foes are the misguided politicians who allow jihadists disguised as migrants into Austria and elsewhere in Europe, and allows the Islamification underway, Hofer says.

In Austria, the Freedom Party regularly leads opinion polls, with about one-third of the vote, easily surpassing the mainstream center-left and center-right parties. That means that the FPÖ will not only win the presidency, but soon head the government as well.

Before Austria urged Balkan States last spring to shut their borders to migrants reaching Central Europe via Turkey and Greece, it had been flooded with refugees passing through.

Austria accepted applications from about 90 000 asylum seekers in 2015, while 10 times as many migrants, or nearly one million people, passed through Austria, a country of 8.4 million people.

As a percentage of the population, “it is as if 30 million people would have crossed through the USA,” Höfer told the New York Times.

Hofer has already visited neighboring Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and speaks of forging an alliance of Central and Eastern European nations under Austrian guidance.

He expressed the hope that Vienna could become a neutral meeting place for superpowers, in seeking economic cooperation with Russia.

“If people and businesses work together economically, there is a greater understanding for the Russian and American and Austrian souls,” Hofer said.