Almost five weeks until the federal presidential election – and the election campaign is entering the intensive phase. FP candidate Walter Rosenkranz celebrated the official start of his election campaign on Saturday in Wels, incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen will begin his intensive election campaign on Friday in the Museumsquartier in Vienna.
One thing is also certain: there are more candidates in this Hofburg election than ever before – and not a single female candidate. In theory, the ballot could have up to ten names on it. Because in addition to the seven who submitted the necessary declarations of support by 5 p.m. last Friday, four other nominations were submitted. The federal electoral authority has granted a “grace period” until midnight on Tuesday for three of them. One is considered not to have been submitted due to the lack of a contribution to costs of 3600 euros.
The number of declarations of support does not affect the order on the ballot, it is alphabetical. MFG boss Michael Brunner, blogger Gerald Grosz (formerly FPÖ/BZÖ), FP candidate Walter Rosenkranz, shoe manufacturer Heinrich Staudinger, incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen, ex-“Krone” columnist Tassilo Wallentin and beer party founder Dominik are therefore fixed Wlazny aka “Marco Pogo” appear in that order. Despite the lack of declarations of support, Wolfgang Ottowitz, David Packer, Johann Peter Schutte and Robert Marschall submitted their proposal on Friday. The electoral authorities did not announce which of the four did not pay a contribution to costs and therefore did not receive a grace period. It will meet again on Thursday to finalize and announce the election proposals.
“We are not in the Vatican”
In any case, the FPÖ with its candidate Walter Rosenkranz started in the Welser Volksfestzelt in the usual manner. Party leader Herbert Kickl launched an all-out attack on the federal government, state party leader Manfred Haimbuchner presented Rosencrantz as a “youngster” in comparison with the incumbent president (“With all due respect to the older generation, but we are not in the Vatican”). Rosencrantz himself said Van der Bellen was “not the one standing up for you”. For this he, Rosencrantz, must at least get into the run-off election on October 9th.
From today’s perspective, pollster Peter Hajek expects Alexander Van der Bellen to be elected in the first ballot, unless he “makes a serious mistake”. Hajek does not believe that the “piece of cake” for the incumbent president will become smaller due to the large number of candidates. Political advisor Thomas Hofer was more cautious at the weekend. He also sees Van der Bellen as a “big favourite”. In contrast to Hajek, however, he sees possible problems in mobilizing voters. (desire)
Source: Nachrichten
