Austria's far-right candidate wins 1st round of presidential race

The latest poll showed far-right Freedom Party (FPO) candidate Norbert Hofer has won the first round of the Austrian presidential election on Sunday.

Norbert Hofer, born in 1971, is the youngest candidate in the election. He has won 35.4 percent of the votes, clearly the winner of the first round, Austrian public broadcaster ORF quoted the poll as saying.

Hofer will enter the run-off on May 22, according to the poll, which garnered 99.8 percent of the votes. The rest of the votes, yet to be calculated, can hardly affect the result of the election.

The election marks the best-ever result for the anti-migrant FPO, surpassing their previous best result of winning 27.53 percent of the votes in 1996.

The poll showed that the Green party-backed Alexander van der Bellen got 21.3 percent of the votes and the only female candidate Irmgard Griss won 19 percent.

Alexander van der Bellen will compete with Hofer in the second round of the presidential election.

The current ruling parties candidates, Rudolf Hundstorfer of the Social Democratic Party (SPO) and the center-right People's Party (OVP)candidate Andreas Khol only got 10.9 percent and 11.2 percent of the votes respectively.

Their failure to enter the run-off means for the first time since 1945, Austria's president is neither backed by SPO nor OVP.

Richard Lugner, an 83-year-old famous businessman in Austria, got only 2.3 percent of the votes.