In response, the Organization for Security and Co-operaiton in Europe (OSCE) has announced it will send election observers to Austria – the first time since World War II.

According to the Austrian Independent:

“The body (OSCE) announced it planned to send a ten-member team of experts to Austria to check structural aspects like press coverage and party financing initiatives. The intergovernmental organisation added the team would stay in Austria until around one week after the election set to be held on 25 April.”

Rosenkranz continues to claim she has always denounced Nazi ideology, saying:

“I have never questioned the basic values of our country. I always defended them. My political engagement is an expression of my love for our homeland and for the Republic of Austria, to its neutrality and its freedom.”

While he has avoided commenting on Rosenkranz’s views, President Heinz Fischer said he urged the Austrian people to “create a firewall” against crimes committed during World War II.

More later.

Here is a breakdown of the upcoming 2010 Senate elections:

• 36 Senate seats are up for re-election.
• 25 incumbent senators – 13 Democrats and 12 Republican – have announced their intention to seek re-election.
• 11 Senators – 5 Democrats and 6 Republicans – are retiring, creating open elections to fill these coveted seats.

Unlike the House of Representatives, all 100 Senators are not up for re-election. Currently, the Democratic caucus controls 59 seats (57 Democrats and 2 independents); the Republican caucus control 41 seats, needing to win 10 Democratic-controlled seats to take control of the Senate. (Note: If Republicans win 9 seats, the Senate will be split 50-50; the President of the Senate – Democratic Vice President Joe Biden – would break the tie, giving the Democrats the majority.)

Scott Brown’s recent victory in the Massachusetts special election, coupled with low Democratic poll numbers, have given Republicans momentum and hope of winning back control of the U.S. Senate. From now until November 2, we will be monitoring key Senate races throughout the country, providing updated information and analysis.

As the Austrian Times reported, women’s equality will be a key issue for President Fischer. He has called for new measures, such as free kindergartens and all-day schools, to help women balance professional careers and their family life.

He said in the statement:

It is important to me again to say to women that they have my full support for their demands.

In addition, he indicated his support for efforts to put more women in senior business and political positions in Austria.

In response, Rosenkranz has changed her mind. In a statement, Rosenkranz said she supported Austrian laws that ban denial of the Holocaust, saying: “Democracy, freedom and human dignity have always been the foundations of my views and my political activities. This is why I condemn the crimes of the era of the National Socialistic regime. I distinctively dissociate myself from Nazi ideology,”

As The Guardian discussed in a recent article, Mrs. Rosenkranz has held an opposing view for decades:

Rosenkranz, a mother of 10 married to a man who was prominent on the Austrian neo-Nazi scene for two decades, has repeatedly criticised Austria’s laws criminalising denial of the Holocaust. Asked on national radio last week whether she believed the Nazis murdered millions of Jews in concentration camp gas chambers, she answered evasively, adding that freedom of expression also meant allowing “absurd, bizarre opinions.

Political analysts all agree Mrs. Rosenkranz does not poise a real threat to the re-election of current president Heinz Fischer: a recent poll showed two of of five Austrian believe her views and statements were damaging to the country.

However, as The Guardian pointed out, “her campaign is seen as a test by the extreme right and its powerful backers to gauge how much support they can muster. They hope she will be helped by the absence of a mainstream centre-right candidate.”

More later.

Lord Mandelson has been enjoying this week. Perhaps buoyed by last weekend’s Sunday Times opinion poll, he has been on a one man mission to cause as much havoc to the credibility of Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft as possible, whilst simultaneously distracting the Tory spin machine and causing general irritation within the Cameron camp. For the first time, the Conservatives’ loathing of the Business Secretary may have become greater than the Prime Minister’s. Indeed, reports this week of a bust up at Number Ten between the two main players in Labour may in part be responsible for Mandelson’s current bullishness.

But this afternoon, a new shudder went through Conservative HQ: not only is the donor suffering at the paws of Mandelson, but his money might not be quite having the effect the Conservatives would hope.

A Channel Four News/YouGov poll, to be revealed tonight, will show that the Conservatives’ lead in 60 marginal seats has fallen to just two percentage points above that of Labour: 39% to 37%. This is the narrowest gap since Gordon Brown came to power in 2007. Although it shows that support is higher in the marginals than the national average, Channel Four News say that it would lead to a Conservative minority government, 11 seats short of an overall majority.

Peter Kellner from YouGov said tonight: “If we apply this swing to each Labour marginal, the Tories would win 52 out of the 60 seats. Add that to the 43 Labour super-marginals, where Labour’s majority last time was below 6 percentage points, and the Tories would capture 95 seats overall from Labour.”

Just as glum for the Conservatives is the polling on the bread and butter issues; leading the economy out of recession and jobs; Gordon Brown scored higher than Cameron on both these fronts, though the Conservatives did poll higher – by 2 points – on which party would be better for the economy, which would appear to show that they trust the Conservatives with the economy over the longer term.

Cameron will take comfort that his satisfaction ratings have remained the same at 60%, although a majority of those polled considered him to be ‘lightweight’.

The Conservatives’ spin machine is directing the media to evidence within the poll which show that 58% believe it is time for a change of Government.

The poll was carried out this week, as the Ashcroft affair gathered pace and following last week’s Sunday Times poll – also YouGov. It is clear that although there are few people outside the Number Ten bunker who believe Labour will win an outright majority, there has been a shift in mood in the country over the last few weeks which will make the election far more interesting than Mr Cameron would have hoped.

As for Mandelson, he may not end up on the winning side of this particular campaign, but through his tactics of distraction, focus and sheer political nerve, he is showing both opposing Generals how any war could be won.

As the article stated:

“She is most widely known for her belief that Austria’s law banning the glorification of the Nazis is a hindrance to freedom of expression and violates the country’s constitution. In the same vein, she also has defended doubts over Nazi gas chambers.”

The Social Democratic Party issued a harsh statement on Rosenkranz and her candidacy, saying she is “not suited for the highest post in the republic.” The Green Alternative said, in a statement, that “whoever trivializes as freedom of expression the denial that there were gas chambers in the Third Reich is certainly unfit as candidate for the presidency.”

Click here to read the entire Associated Press article.

Already, the analysts and the FPO concede Mr. Fischer will win by a landslide. FPO party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said in a recent Austrian Independent article he expected Mrs. Rosenkranz to win up to 35 percent of the vote. However, Mr. Strache expresses confidence his candidate could win votes from key demographics, helping build party momentum for other elections.

President Fischer has not commented on his competitors, instead indicating “he would focus on topics such as human dignity, respect of the federal constitution, social fairness, credibility and a peaceful development of Europe.”

When asked for a percentage prediction on his assumed victory, he declined, indicating he wanted a “clear decision.”

For more analysis, check out this article from the Austrian Independent.

As of 7:30 am this morning, Dutch citizens can cast their votes for local elections in almost 400 municipalities in the Netherlands. While this is normally nothing more than an ordinary every 4-year exercise that hardly draws a majority of the Dutch electorate to the ballot- box, the collapse of the government has put the local elections in the spotlights. Many believe the results of the local elections will be of predictive value to the outcomes of the advanced national elections on June 9th.

With the national elections in sight, Dutch political party leaders are eagerly using the local elections as a platform for their national campaigns. What should have been the moment of fame for local councilors, has become a race for media attention among national politicians. Public debate instantly switched from local agendas to national issues.

Over the last days, national party dignitaries could be found high-fiving with citizens throughout the country, they’re engaged in a kind of ‘twitter-marathon’ (as if the parties with most twitter postings will get most votes today) and of course accusations on who was to blame for the collapse of the government in the first place are flying around. Their aim: profiling for the national elections in June.    

Whether the results of today’s local elections will be of great predictive value for the national elections in June however, remains doubtful. With the popularity of the controversial rightist political movement of Geert Wilders (the PVV) on the rise, the debate among national parties seems to have crystallized to one question: “Are you in with the PVV or are you out?” As the PVV is solely participating in the local elections of 2 cities, today’s elections won’t reflect national sentiments. The question therefore will most likely remain unanswered today.

The ballot-boxes are closing tonight at 21:00 (GMT +1) so keep an eye on this blog for an update on the election results!

The tone of General Elections in the UK changed forever this week with the final details of the first ever live TV debates between the party leaders being announced by British broadcasters.

The debates will centre around three themes; domestic affairs (chaired by Alastair Stewart in the North West and staged by ITV); international affairs (chaired by Adam Boulton in the South West and staged by Sky News) and the economy (chaired by David Dimbleby in the Midlands and staged by the BBC).

The debates will be up to 90 minutes long and will be based on the American system, whereby an invited studio audience of up to 200 can ask pre-set questions but not interact with the politicians. The audience will be selected by the pollsters ICM and will be based primarily on voting intentions, as well as ethnicity, age, gender and social class. Politically, they will be selected on a ratio of 7 Labour, 7 Conservative and 5 Liberal Democrats. Eighty per cent have to have expressed a voting intention. It is widely thought that the restriction on audience interaction was one of the main stumbling blocks in advance of the this week’s final decision.

Each party leader will make an opening statement on the debate’s theme for one minute. Each will give a 90 second closing statement at the end of the debate.

Other senior politicians will also be holding debates and these details have yet to be finalised by the broadcasters.

Reacting to the announcement, which has come after months of discussion between the political parties and the broadcasters, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown MP told the media yesterday: “I want to debate the big issues and I want to show that we are best for jobs, for the health services, for public services as a whole, for tackling antisocial behaviour and for dealing with the economy.” Conservative Leader David Cameron MP said: “What it is really about is trying to get across to people what you stand for, what you want to do, why you are passionate about the changes you want to bring to this country.” For the Liberal Democrats, their Leader Nick Clegg MP said: “It’s great news that at a time when trust in politicians is at a low people will be able to have a good look at the party leaders and find out what they stand for”.

So who will emerge the winner? It could be argued that there will be two, based on the unprecedented positioning next to the ‘big beasts’ which these debates will secure. The first will be Nick Clegg, who if he is clever, will allow Brown and Cameron to tear pieces out of each other whilst enjoying unprecedented airtime for his party. The second will be Sky News and Adam Boulton. The satellite broadcaster campaigned for the debates last year and will now find themselves standing alongside the BBC and ITV as equals, with Adam Boulton saying yesterday that it will be a ‘high point’ in his career.

The rules announced yesterday are sensible and will hopefully ensure that the TV debates become a valuable part of British democracy, with politicians being able to give considered answers without the need to carry an audience with a soundbite.

The weekend’s Sunday Times YouGov poll made grim reading for activists at the Conservatives’ Spring Conference in Brighton. It suggested that Cameron’s lead had shrunk to just two points which it claimed would give Labour enough seats to lead a minority Government in a hung Parliament.

This poll, however, came only a few days after another in a national newspaper which gave the Conservatives an increased lead of 13 points.

Like the first cuckoo of spring, we have the first of the pre-election ‘poll differentiations’ as they are sometimes known. Of considerable interest is the immediate psychology of the story. One activist at the conference said that it ‘dampened an already gloomy mood’ and added that there was a considerable difference between Brighton and the optimistic, upbeat mood of the Autumn. Furthermore, it is likely to lift the spirits of Labour activists who are gradually increasing their canvassing.

Whatever the margins of the Conservative poll lead at the moment, it is clear that Cameron’s campaign is misfiring. He is struggling on three fronts: first, he is not benefitting proportionately from the daily disasters which seem to face the current Prime Minister, whether personal or political. Second, he is struggling to get key policy messages across – the New Year of policy blitzes which were promised by the Conservatives over the Christmas period fizzled out before the last of the turkey sandwiches. Could it be that there is more internal emphasis on who’s who in the campaign team than the campaign itself? Third, there has been a movement in tone – the allegations of bullying by the PM ironically turned Brown into the victim last week, in a similar way to how the ‘letters to deceased soldiers’ story backfired on his attackers last year. Conversely, the Conservatives may be appearing a bit too confident in the eyes of an unforgiving public; remember what happened to Neil Kinnock after his Sheffield rally in 1992.

What may not help Cameron further is his controversial assertion that he has a ‘patriotic duty’ to remove Gordon Brown, a tone which is unlikely to chime with the British public. One very senior Labour veteran of recent General Elections told Fleishman-Hillard this week that the patriotic comment was: ‘a major misjudgment on Cameron’s part… it only increases the likelihood of centre-ground voters moving back to Labour’.

Isabel Oakeshott, Deputy Political Editor of the Sunday Times also spoke to Fleishman-Hillard following her paper’s poll, saying: ‘If there isn’t panic at Tory HQ, there should be. That the polls should be moving so significantly in Labour’s favour after serious new questions have been raised over the Prime Minister’s character is extraordinary. It looks as if this will be a much more exciting election than predicted. David Cameron may think it is his patriotic duty to oust Gordon Brown, but the polls suggest this sort of negative campaigning – focusing on Labour’s shortcomings rather than setting out a compelling vision of life under the Conservatives – is not so far proving effective’.

Furthermore, the economy is improving and the better of the Labour spin doctors will be ensuring that if the voters can remember one thing about Brown and Cameron at the election, it will be that Brown supported and was heavily involved in the actions which they will say are bringing the world out of recession, whilst Cameron opposed them.

It will be fascinating to see what the next few polls indicate over the coming days and weeks – and how the Sunday Times will respond if last week’s looks to have been rogue. One thing is for sure, the weekend’s talks of a hung Parliament with Brown clinging on to power have not had the disastrous results in the financial markets which some journalists and pollsters had predicted: the FTSE 100 is gaining ground. Perhaps the markets know something the pollsters don’t.