Austria's President wins second term

Austria's president easily secured a second term last night, deflecting a challenge by a far-right politician who had denounced the nation's anti-Nazi law.

Heinz Fischer, a Social Democrat, won 78.9 per cent, trouncing his main rival, Barbara Rosenkranz of the anti-foreigner and anti-EU, Freedom Party, who netted 15.6 per cent.

Only about half of voters cast ballots, as opposed to 70 per cent six years ago when Fischer, now 71, was first elected.

Rosenkranz failed to tap the full potential of the Freedom Party's popularity, which pollsters put at around 20 percent, despite the party's hopes of a 35 per cent vote.

Rosenkranz, 51, who describes herself as a housewife and mother of 10, has questioned a law against propagating Nazism.

Feeding off anti-foreigner and anti-EU sentiment, the hard right took almost a third of the vote in the 2008 parliamentary election, but was kept in opposition when the main centre-left and centr-right parties revived a coalition.

Rosenkranz sought to broaden her message into mainstream territory after what analysts called an ill-considered campaign launch last month that underlined her ultra-rightist provincial background.

In a national radio interview, she reiterated a view that Austria's 1947 law banning denial of the Nazi Holocaust was unconstitutional since it interfered with freedom of speech.

Asked whether she doubted the existence of Nazi death camps where millions of Jews were executed, she said only: "I have a knowledge of history taught in Austrian schools in 1964-76".

Critics say Austria did not publicly acknowledge its historical role in Nazi crimes before the late 1980s when then-President Kurt Waldheim admitted to hiding wartime service in Adolf Hitler's officer corps.