Van der Bellen set to remain Austria’s president

Austria’s centrist president Alexander Van der Bellen is on target to return to workplace for a second time period, preliminary election outcomes indicated on Sunday night, as voters endorsed his marketing campaign’s promise of stability after 5 years of political upheaval.

An extrapolation of counted ballots after polls closed at 5pm Sunday night indicated Van der Bellen had secured 56.3 per cent of the nationwide vote, leaving him virtually sure to win the primary spherical. Pollsters don’t anticipate a significant variation within the end result earlier than a proper declaration within the coming hours.

Van der Bellen, 78, stood as an unbiased candidate, however he was beforehand a distinguished politician in Austria’s Inexperienced Social gathering, on the ticket of which he was first elected in 2016.

His marketing campaign was exceptional for its low-key tenor, regardless of a tense political and financial backdrop in Austria, the place a fragile and unpopular coalition conservative-green authorities is navigating the nation by way of a spiralling vitality and value of dwelling disaster.

Austria’s long-established rightwing populist Freedom Social gathering was the one different mainstream get together to area a candidate within the election.

Walther Rosenkranz — who stood on an anti-establishment platform that included opposition to sanctions towards Russia — is about to return in second place, with slightly below 18 per cent of votes anticipated to have been forged in his favour.

Supporters of Alexander Van der Bellen have a good time the primary outcomes of the presidential election in Vienna on Sunday © Markus Schreiber/AP

“This can be a nice success,” Freedom Social gathering deputy parliamentary faction chief Dagmar Belakowitsch advised Der Normal newspaper after the primary provisional end result was revealed at 5pm in Vienna. “It was a really troublesome recreation towards an incumbent president. It could have been good to have [had] a runoff election. However that aim was solely narrowly missed.”

The dearth of opposition from Austria’s political mainstream “arguably sealed the deal from day one,” in favour of Van der Bellen mentioned Marcus How, head of research at VE Perception, a political threat consultancy.

Regardless of Van der Bellen’s re-election on a ticket that promised probity and transparency in authorities, the marketing campaign had been “unhealthy for democratic life in Austria” mentioned How.

“Van der Bellen [ran] a low-energy, choreographed marketing campaign . . . this allowed a lot of the discourse to be dominated by crude populist narratives on overseas and safety coverage, EU sanctions of Russia and the provisions of the structure,” he mentioned.

Van der Bellen declined to participate in tv debates, leaving the Freedom Social gathering’s Rosenkranz to politically dominate panel discussions with the 5 different marginal candidates.

Whereas the Austrian presidency is a principally ceremonial function, the workplace can be vested with important constitutional tasks which were put to the check lately.

Really useful

In his first six yr time period, Van der Bellen presided over six completely different chancellors in seven administrations that included Sebastian Kurz, as soon as thought to be the wunderkind of European conservative politics, serving twice.

Kurz’s travails because the chief of the conservative Austrian Individuals’s Social gathering proceed to forged a protracted shadow over Austrian politics. For supporters the younger chancellor was a robust communicator whose political nous promised radical modifications in Austria’s sclerotic political scene. For detractors his aggressive stage administration of the media and ruthlessness masked endemic political corruption and cronyism.

Originally published at Gold Coast News HQ