The 24-hour voting period for the Austrian wildcard vote is over, with AzRaH and her song “The One” eventually being declared the winner. She’ll now take the the tenth spot in the Austrian national final Wer singt für Österreich? on 12 February. But there was a scandal with the voting.
At the time the Facebook voting period closed, AzRaH was in second place. Topping the poll was Sara Koell and her song “Closer to the Sun”.
- Sara Koell – “Closer to the Sun” 8076
- AzRaH – “The One” 7250
- Laura Kamhuber – “Stay Tonight” 7725
- David Siedl feat. Madelene & MC Vio – “Wah Wah Whine” 1926
- Ola Egbowon – “Addicted” 1195
But something wasn’t quite right. Fans noticed that “Closer to the Sun” had suddenly gained around 2000 votes in the last couple of hours, which suggested they were from fake accounts attempting to boost the vote. It’s not known where these suspicious votes came from, but there’s no suggestion they were organised by Sara herself.
Sara made a statement on her Facebook page, saying that ORF should only count votes from Austria and that she was prepared to withdraw from the wildcard competition to preserve her reputation as a musician.
ORF investigated, got some professional analysis and excluded “obviously rigged” votes from the tally. The new result put AzRaH in the lead with 7168 likes.
AzRaH was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and moved to Austria with her family at the age of nine. She says that she is inspired by pop/rock music from the Balkans as well as music from Europe and America.
Wiwi Poll results
We asked you who you thought should win the Austrian wildcard vote. Your favourite was the unlucky Sara Koell, with 44.79% of the vote. Eventual winner AzRaH was unpopular with Wiwi readers, coming last with only 9.9% of the vote.
- Sara Koell – “Closer To The Sun” 44.79% (86 votes)
- Laura Kamhuber – “Stay Tonight” 19.79% (38 votes)
- Ola Egbowon – “Addicted” 13.02% (25 votes)
- David Siedl feat. Madelene & MC Vio – “Wah Wah Whine” 12.5% (24 votes)
- AzRaH – “The One” 9.9% (19 votes)
What about Laura
I have done some research to find the possible songs for the known participants in the Austrian NF. Sankil Jones “My All” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-BFLgxGlDw not my up of tea – doesnt go anywhere Vincent Bueno “Geständnis” (Confession) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soWRxg-TGR0 reminds me a lot of Sabrina Setlur & 3p – comes 15 years too late Orry Jackson – “Room service” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GEoEukswb0 Silly song lacking the punch – gets boring after 30 seconds Zoe – “Loin d’ici” (Far from here) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXB5Fp28M08 (last minute) Sounds like another Zoe lullaby. “Mon coeur a trôp aimé” would have been stronger for ESC, but… Read more »
I still think MIBLU should have won the wildcard.
@Österrike
Some Bosnian media advertised Azra and wrote that people must vote for her because she’s Bosnian. The same problem with them every time (BB, X Factor, any other regional show, Eurovision) and they didn’t even heard the song.
And I wouldn’t be suprised that Azra also bought her votes because she had more than 200 likes in less than a minute.
Wow.. they really screwed up that wildcard thingy didn’t they? Gerry+Me was a top 5 at Eurovision… this is an imminent last place at the National Final.
and just to be more mindblown, Parov Stelar is from Austria. (and I just found out), right, crazy.
this is very Parov Stelar, and I quite like it, the vibes of free, electronic, ambient jazz, are definitively appealing. (not to everyone though).
This one is going to the IPod, directly into the jazz biscuits playlist.
I’ll leave a link here so you could listen to an example (btw this one is from 2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI1OuePz2pY
if you love this, then Parov Stelar’s “The Princess” might be one of the best albums you’ve heard
First of all, ORF’s idea of this “voting system” via Facebook was sh**.
Second, awful song.
either way austria won’t qualify
Everyone needs to listen to Greta Salome’s song right now! Her song is sooo good
Five non-starters. Doesn’t matter.
They should have taken Sara’s advice and only counted votes from Austria. It’s quite certain that the majority of Azrah’s votes came from Bosnians blindly supporting her. She’ll probably finish last in the national final and they’ll wonder what happened.
well, you should inform better, two of them (sara and laure) have been disqualified as they bought their LIKES.
Austria can do better for acts. I’m guessing they’re spurred on by their recent win.
Either way, these are all pretty eh.
Though the Icelandic Songs have been released, and Greta Salome’s sounds rather of monsters and men. It’s really good.
Didn’t care for any of these, Gerry+Me is the only one I bothered to download
i don’t think austria would qualify.
Would have really loved if it was Sara instead. Too bad that this happened 🙁
Atleast I can support a bosnian outside of Sweden (and Bosnia) 😀
The national final at ORF always ends up being a big scru-up. In 2005 the invented a federal state voting, so that Global.Kryner could win over Alf Poier, who got in total 45.000 votes more than the awkward global.kryner. In 2011 ORF and Ö3 asked the public to vote for 30 songs in advance of which 10 would make the final. Nothing was told that their would be a jury to rig the vote and many fan favourites were left out the national final. In the final they made a superfinal of the top 3, which was won by the… Read more »
Wiwiblogggs Iceland has released their songs! However I find them very boring and bad this year, almost all songs from last year’s selection were better 🙁
When I was observing the vote tally last night, Sara had a significant lead over everyone else. Azrah was lagging behind at 3rd to 4th place.
For some reason Azrah must have passed her quickly by in the morning and someone must have thought to defend Sara and buy here some votes.
Nearly all of AzRaH’s votes came from ex-Yugoslavia it seems, but oh well. This was a horrible way to select the wildcard. It’s a shame Sara didn’t get it, she had the only decent song.
I like AzRaH song, it is something really good. That Sara song is another pathetic piece of c**p.
Anyhow, I hope that Austria selects a good song for Stockholm and advance to the Final. DO NOT get back to the Semis Austria, like before 2014. 😛
Apparently Azrah could rely on the Bosnian community, whom she already thanked for for standing behind her. Many posts in Serbocroatian/Bosnian language prove that. No significant support from Austrians for her. I doubt she has a chance in the national final, even if the Bosnian community pushes her yet again. But there will be a jury too and her song is just incredibly weak.
Stupid way to conduct a vote, really. Now we’ll never know who really won. Good luck to her, regardless!