The Worm Turns Slowly in Austria's TimeWarp Election Do-Over

Austrian presidential election result overturned and must be held again

The Do-Over election will happen on October 2, 2016. Let's recap a bit of recent European history to see what is likely to happen.

​More after the break.

France

January 7-9, 2015
A string of attacks in Paris results in 17 deaths. The satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, targeted for its hard-hitting criticism of Islamic terror and the justifications given for it by its purveyors, is the scene of a massacre as gunmen spray bullets into an editorial meeting. The Charlie Hebdo attacked galvanized a worldwide unique and defiant media response, perhaps because it was seen as an attack not just on people, but on the concept of freedom of speech itself.

February 3, 2015
Nice is the scene. A knife-wielding man, fined earlier in the day for riding a tram without paying, attacks soldiers protecting a Jewish community center. No fatalities are recorded.

June 26, 2015
Terrifying shadows of ISIS propaganda as a man is beheaded at an industrial plant near Lyon. The perpetrator, Yassin Salhi, allegedly texted images of the scene to a contact in Syria before hanging his boss’s head on a fence and unsuccessfully attempting to blow up a factory by ramming it with his van.

August 21, 2015
A man, armed with a rifle, attacks passengers on the Thalys high speed train between Amsterdam and Paris. 25-year-old Moroccan man Ayoub El Khazzani peppers a carriage with bullets and injures three passengers before being subdued by other passengers, including two American servicemen.

November 13, 2015
Paris is again overcome with terror. Suicide attacks at an international soccer match at the Stade de France, a cafe in central Paris, and then a hostage situation and bloody, prolonged massacre at the Bataclan music hall leave 130 dead. The attack, carried out against the backdrop of a European refugee influx from Syria and perpetrated by men who were already well-known to the French security forces, raises huge questions about intelligence-gathering and the quality of surveillance in France.

June 13, 2016
A man with a knife kills two police officers in Yvelines, to the west of Paris. The suspect is shot dead by police.

July 14, 2016
On France’s national holiday, a Tunisian man drives a truck into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks along the seafront promenade in Nice, opening fire on and then plowing into the onlookers. At least 80 people are killed, with scores more injured along a mile-long rampage. The truck used was loaded with other weaponry, hinting at further intentions, and perhaps suggesting opportunism on the part of the attacker, who is killed by police.

Turkey

July 15, 2016 Coup overcome by the government but results in massive purges throughout the nation with tens of thousands losing their jobs, or being arrested.

Europe Generally

Over the last few years the influx of "refugees" has resulted in a huge increase in rape, sexual assault, petty crime, violent crime, terrorist actions, and wide spread dislocation of local communities due to the increase in culturally incompatible immigrants. 

Since 2008, the Southern EU nations have been in either a recession, or depression depending on how one defines depression.

It is impossible to believe that these continuing events will not effect the pending election. They are the core problems which caused so many Austrians to vote for the Austrian Freedom party.

"While the Austrian presidency is a largely ceremonial role, the outcome has been seen as hugely symbolic, with the Freedom party seemingly buoyed by growing anti-refugee sentiment and disaffection with the country’s political establishment.

Hofer’s comment in a TV debate that “you will be surprised by what can be done [by a president]” had given rise to fears that the soft-spoken 45-year-old could make use of powers to dissolve parliament once in office.

Having previously appealed for Britain to reform the European Union from within, Hofer last week called for Austria to have its own referendum on EU membership if the alliance of states was to take further steps towards “a centralized union”."

I can hardly wait to see what happens. Notably this will happen a mere month before the US election. 

Who knew Rocky Horror Picture Show would become an oracle.