Last weekend Austria finally had our presidential election. Seven candidates were battling it out in order to reach the highest office in the country for the next six years with the current president (Alexander Van der Bellen) being far ahead of everyone else in most pre-election polls.
The other candidates were a wild mix of people mostly from the center to right side of the political spectrum (e.g. Walter Rosenkranz of the FPÖ or Martin Brunner of the MFG) except for the head of the satirical “Bierpartei”, Dominik Wlazny, who is more on the left side. A couple of weeks before the election there was a large panel discussion between all these candidates except for Van der Bellen. To put it mildly: It went badly. I tried to watch it… I couldn’t take it. The level of the discussions was very low and the only one who appeared to be sane here was the head of the Bierpartei…
Last Sunday now came and went and there were only a few surprises but, luckily, no real shockers: Alexander Van der Bellen got re-elected with 56.7% of the votes and Walter Rosenkranz reached the distant second place with 17.7%. The only real surprise was that Dominik Wlazny got 8.3% of the votes and came in third!
He also mentioned that he had a wager running that he’d drink a beer for every percent he got. I guess, the election party was great 😅 Asked about this during a TV interview he said the following:
ORF: “Weil sonst könnten wir Sie morgen nicht mehr interviewen”
DW: “Muss ich morgen wieder zu euch???”
ORF: “I don’t know”
DW: “Ich befürchte es fast 😅”
Another candidate, Tassilo Wallentin who is a opinion writer for the largest newspaper in Austria and who lost the third place to Dominik Wlazny, did something completely different and during the election campaign basically lied to journalists regarding his team… and is now doing a 180… and probably a couple more in the near future.
Personally, I think that Van der Bellen did a good job so far and I just like someone who can stay calm and productive during a crisis. In my opinion just who we need right now and, sadly, in the near future.
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