In a nail-biting finale, Alexander van der Bellen on Monday (23 May) secured a tiny majority of 50.3 percent to prevent Norbert Hofer becoming the EU’s first far-right head of state.
It was the happy ending to a comeback-of-the-year campaign that Van der Bellen and his team pulled off in the last two weeks.
Norbert “the pinstriped-Nazi” Hofer, was unable to defend the 14-point lead that he had established in the first round o...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.