In Austria the elections are really rigged – by incompetence.

The Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) announced that it had declared the wrong candidate as the winner of the tough party elections held over the weekend.

In place of the populist governor of eastern Burgenland, Hans-Peter Doskotzil, the mayor of a left-wing small town, Andreas Babler, will head the country’s oldest political party.

About 600 SPÖ delegates voted at the extraordinary party congress on Saturday. Doskozil celebrated his victory after a clear win with 53% of the vote. In fact, according to revised tallies, Mr. Bubbler won 53% and Mr. Doskozil won 47%.

As of late Monday, it remains unclear what caused the strange turn of events. Mikaela Gulbesa, SPÖ’s head of election administration, gave a confused explanation at her press conference, in which she blamed “a technical error by her colleague in using an Excel table” while tallying the results.

The error was discovered during Monday’s recount. One vote was not taken into account in Saturday’s original tally, so a recount was made.

“It’s important to stress that there was nothing wrong with the election itself or the work of the Election Commission,” said Mr Gulbesa, who regretted not calling for a recount over the weekend to ensure nothing was wrong. I added that there is.

Doskozil said it was a “challenging day” but he would embrace the new results.

“This is the result of the party convention,” he said.

What is less clear, however, is whether the electoral fiasco will further disrupt the party, which has long been a pillar of Austrian democracy. SPÖ’s supporters hoped the leadership vote would give the party new momentum, with the party now ranking second in opinion polls after the far-right Liberal Party.

A multi-year battle between Doscozil and former party leader Pamela Rendy-Wagner over the direction of the party and who should run it hinted at a general election over the weekend. Rendy Wagner was eliminated from the race after finishing third in the party’s polls last month, leading to a double crown at the party’s convention over the weekend.

Most Austrians hadn’t even heard of the former machinist until a few weeks ago. Nonetheless, his campaign as an outspoken spokesman for the nation seems to have resonated with the party base.

That said, he appeared to have stumbled on the final straight after the 2020 season podcast interview In it, he called the EU “the most aggressive foreign policy military alliance that has ever existed”, adding that the EU was “worse than NATO”.

He also caused confusion by declaring himself a Marxist in a television interview and then claiming he was not a Marxist.

“I don’t understand this commotion,” said Ms Babler. “I do nothing but talk about Marxism.”