Austrian Social Democrats announce wrong leader after ‘technical error’

Party officials say Andreas Babler won race, not Hans Peter Doskozil as previously declared due to Excel error

Austria’s Social Democratic party has admitted a “technical error” in an Excel file led to it announcing the wrong candidate as its new leader.

Officials at the centre-left SPÖ said on Monday that Andreas Babler, the mayor of the south-eastern city of Traiskirchen, had in fact won the race, and not Hans Peter Doskozil, the governor of the south-eastern Burgenland region, who had been declared the winner on Saturday.