Incumbent and favorite Van der Bellen has been re-elected as Austrian President. The two largest parties had not entered their own candidates because of the obvious lack of prospects. In the last election, things looked very different.
Incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen emerged victorious in Austria's presidential election. According to the first projection by the SORA institute for the ORF, the former leader of the Greens received 54.6 percent of the vote. Second-placed Walter Rosenkranz from the right-wing populist FPÖ achieved 18.9 percent. With this absolute majority for Van der Bellen, a runoff election is no longer necessary
According to pollsters, former Green Party leader Van der Bellen has been elected for a further six years. The fluctuation range of the extrapolation is too small to bring about a decisive change, it said. Never before have there been so many candidates as this time. In addition to Van der Bellen, there were six other contenders, all men, for the highest office in the state. Four of them can be assigned to the right camp. Since all federal presidents in Austria who have stood for a second term have been re-elected, Van der Bellen's competitors were seen as having no chance.
Van der Bellen had been directly and indirectly supported by all parliamentary parties except the right-wing FPÖ. The conservative ÖVP and the social democratic SPÖ had refrained from nominating their own candidate. The reason was the fact that an election campaign against an incumbent is considered hopeless - and the parties preferred to save the money for it. The media criticized the fact that there were no women in the field of applicants.
In the last presidential election in Austria in 2016, the situation was completely different. At that time, the FPÖ candidate Norbert Hofer had clearly beaten Van der Bellen in the first ballot and was only defeated in the runoff. The election also made headlines because the second ballot had to be repeated due to irregularities in the counting on the instructions of the constitutional court.
