Not swinging to the right: Austria rejects far right president

Hofer, a member of the far-right Freedom Party, has been the subject of protests in Austria over the weekend as his colleagues have some forward to defend the party against allegations of Nazism.

Van der Bellen used a press conference at Vienna’s Hofburg Palace to thank his supporters over Sunday’s victory.

A victory for Mr Hofer would have been regarded as another lurch to the nationalist right in Europe and a further threat to the unity on the continent given the Freedom Party had proposed its own European Union referendum in certain circumstance such as granting Turkey membership of the bloc.

European governments breathed a sigh of relief at the result, which opinion polls beforehand had said was too close to call.

The election is a court-ordered rerun of a May vote that Van der Bellen won by less than 1 percentage point.

Voters “resoundingly rejected anti-immigration and Eurosceptic” Hofer, in what has been an “ugly and polarising election in normally peaceable Austria”, says the Daily Telegraph.

Van der Bellen won with 53.5 percent of the vote compared to Hofer’s 46.4 percent – a larger margin of victory than was predicted by pre-vote polls, Reuters reported.

Some 6.4 million Austrians were eligible to vote in Sunday’s election.

“The victory of Van der Bellen does not mean that politicians in the European Union can now lean back and continue with business as usual”.

The interventions come after Mr Farage’s interventions in the Austrian poll were shunned by Norbert Hofer, the extreme right FPÖ’s candidate in the election.

Van der Bellen also expressed hope that Italian Premier Matteo Renzi wins a referendum on constitutional reforms that will be decisive for Renzi’s political future.

Now, with Hofer’s defeat, European Union leaders can breathe a sigh of relief in the wake of the anti-establishment tide sweeping many countries following Britain’s referendum, commonly known as Brexit.

Czech Communist (opposition KSCM) chairman Vojtech Filip said the repeated election did not change the result and it only divided Austrian society even more.

Mr Kantor said it would have been a disaster for Austria and Europe had Mr Hofer won, because it “might have given a strong tailwind for other similar extremists, like the National Front leader Marine Le Pen”.

This election broke the monopoly centrist parties have had on Austria’s highest office for decades.

Austria voted for a new president in April, when Hofer defeated Van der Bellen, but garnered inadequate votes to win the largely ceremonial post outright.