Austria's acting Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner did not rule out a snap parliamentary election after Werner Faymann quit as head of the government, but said on Tuesday he expected to reach agreement in coalition talks with the Social Democrats, according to Reuters. Faymann resigned as chancellor on Monday, bowing to a revolt inside his Social Democratic Party after it suffered a humiliating defeat to the far right in a first-round vote for the largely ceremonial post of president in April. "We are not interested in early elections per se," Mitterlehner, who heads the conservative People's Party (OVP), told a news conference after a weekly cabinet meeting. But he outlined points he wanted to be part of any agreement to keep working with the Social Democrats, who plan to announce a proposed successor to Faymann as party leader and chancellor next week. Among these was a continuation of current immigration policy, including capping asylum claims at less than half last year's total and backing recent legislation paving the way for introducing a tougher asylum system at the border. If agreement could not be reached on those points, a snap election was possible, he said. Austria took in around 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than 1 percent of its population. That has helped fuel support for the anti-immigration Freedom Party, which topped the first round of the presidential election with 35 percent.
