VIENNA, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Austria's constitutional court on Friday accepted a challenge filed by the anti-immigration Freedom Party over the run-off presidential election on May 22, and ordered the election to be held again.
Constitutional Court President Gerhart Holzinger said in a statement released here that the vote will be held nationwide, not simply in some electoral districts as media had speculated may happen.
"Voting is one of the fundamentals of our democracy," Holzinger said, adding that it is the duty of his court to protect it.
He said that while the decision "makes no one a winner and no one a loser," it serves one primary purpose -- to strengthen trust in the rule of law and, as a result, in democracy.
No evidence of vote manipulation has been found by the court, but a number of instances of lax vote counting, particularly in the postal vote system where envelopes were often opened early and not in the presence of relevant authorities, were what led the court to its decision.
The result comes in favor of the challenge put forth by the far-right Freedom Party, whose candidate Norbert Hofer narrowly lost the election to challenger Alexander Van der Bellen by just over 30,000 votes out of more than 4.5 million ballots.
