Austria’s presidential candidates both at 50 per cent

VIENNA — Nearly final results for Austria's presidential election Sunday showed a right-wing politician neck-to-neck race with a challenger whose views stand in direct opposition to his rival's anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic message.

With 97 per cent of the vote counted, right-winger Norbert Hofer and Alexander Van der Bellen, a Greens politician running as an independent, each had 50 per cent support.

With the SORA polling institute putting the margin of error in the poll results at 0.8 per cent per cent, the final outcome remained unclear more than three hours after polls closed.

Absentee ballots, which will be counted by Monday, could be decisive.

Candidates backed by the dominant Social Democratic and centrist People's Party were eliminated in last month's first round, which means neither party would hold the presidency for the first time since the end of the war. That reflects disillusionment with the status quo and their approach to the migrant crisis and other issues.

Hofer and Van der Bellen drew clear lines between themselves during the campaign.

Asked as he arrived to vote Sunday what differentiated him from Hofer, Van der Bellen said: "I think I'm pro-European and there are some doubts as far as Mr. Hofer is concerned." 

Hofer, in turn, used his last pre-election gathering to deliver a message with anti-Muslim overtones.

"To those in Austria who go to war for the Islamic State [Daesh] or rape women — I say to those people: 'This is not your home,'" he told a cheering crowd.

Later, Hofer sought to soothe international fears that he is a radical far-righter. The Austria Press Agency cited him as telling foreign reporters Sunday that he is "really OK", and "not a dangerous person". 

The elections are reverberating beyond Austria's borders. A Hofer win would be viewed by European parties of all political stripes as evidence of a further advance of populist Eurosceptic parties at the expense of the establishment.

In Austria, the result could upend decades of business-as-usual politics, with candidates serving notice they are not satisfied with the ceremonial role for which most predecessors have settled.

Van der Bellen says he would not swear in a Freedom Party chancellor even if that party wins the next elections, scheduled within the next two years. Hofer has threatened to dismiss Austria's government coalition of the Social Democrats and the People's Party if it fails to heed his repeated admonitions to do a better job — and is casting himself as the final arbiter of how the government is performing.