BERLIN — President Heinz Fischer of Austria appeared to be heading for a landslide victory in his bid for a second term on Sunday, winning nearly 80 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results that were not expected to change.

A far-right wing candidate, known for her questioning of Austria’s laws against Holocaust denial, captured about 15 percent, the results showed.

The other major parties, the center-right People’s Party and the Greens, decided not to field candidates for the mainly ceremonial office since neither thought it could defeat Mr. Fischer, a Social Democrat, who enjoyed high popularity ratings throughout his first six-year-term.

Opinion polls all showed Mr. Fischer, 71, winning easily, which seemed to have persuaded voters to stay away from the polls. According to ARGE, the polling institute, only 48.1 percent of those eligible to vote bothered to turn out, compared with 71.6 percent in 2004.

Barbara Rosenkranz, the Freedom Party candidate, admitted defeat after running a campaign in which she had questioned Austria’s law banning Nazi ideology and the denial of the Holocaust.

“This was a defeat for Rosenkranz, for the Freedom Party and for its leader, Heinz-Christian Strache,” an analyst, Peter Hajek, said.

Ms. Rosenkranz incited a significant controversy during an otherwise dull election campaign, by saying that Austria’s banning of Nazi ideology and Holocaust denial were “unnecessary restrictions” on freedom of opinion. She later said she did not deny that the Nazis had committed atrocities during the Holocaust.

Ms. Rosenkranz, a mother of 10 whose husband is a former member of a neo-Nazi party, said during the campaign that she regarded herself as “a woman of the people.”

“You cannot bend me, and you definitely cannot break me,” she told supporters during a final election rally on Friday.

Mr. Fischer presented himself as a calm bridge-builder between Austria’s various political camps. He campaigned as the statesman alternative to Ms. Rosenkranz, whose reputation, Mr. Fischer said, could potentially damage Austria’s image abroad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/world/europe/26austria.html?pagewanted=print