Alexander Van der Bellen

Biography of Alexander Van der Bellen

Date of Birth: 18.01.1944

Alexander Van der Bellen is an Austrian economist and politician. He was the chairman of the Green Party (Die Grünen - Die Grüne Alternative) from 1997 to 2008. On December 4, 2016, he was elected President of Austria and took office on January 26, 2017.

Place of Birth. Education. Alexander Van der Bellen's paternal ancestors immigrated from the Netherlands to Russia in the late 17th century and settled in the Pskov province in the 18th century. One of his maternal great-grandfathers (Georg Maximilian Reimann) was born in 1826 in Poltava province. His father, Alexander Alexandrovich (Van der) Bellen (1898-1966), was born in Pskov. In the summer of 1919, the family moved to Estonia. After Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, he and his wife moved to Germany. After a stay in a refugee camp near Würzburg, the family moved to Vienna.

Alexander Van der Bellen was born on January 18, 1944, in Vienna. At the end of World War II, as Soviet troops approached Vienna, the family moved to the western part of Austria - to the municipality of Kauernthal in Tyrol.

In 1962, Alexander Van der Bellen graduated from high school in Innsbruck. In 1970, he received his doctorate in economics in Innsbruck.

Career. Between 1968 and 1971, he taught at the University of Innsbruck, and from 1972 to 1974 at the Institute for Management and Administration in West Berlin.

In 1975, he earned his habilitation. In 1976, he became a professor at the University of Innsbruck.

In 1977, he moved to Vienna. Between 1977 and 1980, he taught at the Federal Academy of Administration, and in 1980, he became a professor of economics at the University of Vienna.

From 1990 to 1994, he was dean and deputy dean of the Faculty of Economics.

His research interests included areas such as public sector financial policy, infrastructure financial policy, taxation, government spending, government regulation, state-owned enterprises, environmental policy, and transportation policy.

Political Career. Until 1992, Alexander Van der Bellen was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ).

In 1994, he was elected as a member of the National Council of Austria (the lower house of Parliament) for the Greens.

In 1997, he became party chairman, and in 1999, he became faction leader. Under his leadership, the Greens first achieved more than 10% of the votes in parliamentary elections: 7.4% (14 seats in the National Council) in 1999, 9.5% (17 seats) in 2002, 11% (21 seats) in 2006. In the 2008 elections, the party received 10.4% of the votes and lost one seat in the National Council, after which Van der Bellen resigned from his positions as party chairman and faction leader.

From 2012 to 2015, he was a member of the State Parliament (Landtag, Parliament of the Federal State) and a city councilor in Vienna.

In polls, Van der Bellen's personal ratings often significantly exceeded those of his party. He enjoys a reputation as a very decent and educated politician.

In January 2016, Van der Bellen announced that he would run as an independent candidate in the Austrian presidential election 2016 with the support of the Greens.

The president's first quote in Ukraine:The Austrian president in Ukraine: The USA and the EU should help with weapons, but not us - we are neutral.

The first round of the elections took place on April 24, 2016, with six candidates. Norbert Hofer and Alexander Van der Bellen advanced to the runoff, which took place on May 22, 2016. In the runoff, Van der Bellen received 50.35% of the votes and thus won the election. He was to take office as President of Austria on July 8, 2016. However, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) appealed due to violations of counting rules that could theoretically have been used for manipulation (although no actual suspicious manipulations were present). Examples of such violations included the early counting of postal votes, the absence of certain members of election commissions during counting, and the publication of current election results in individual districts before the end of the election.

On July 1, 2016, the Constitutional Court of Austria decided to annul the results of the runoff and call for new elections. The new elections were scheduled for October 2, 2016, but were later postponed to December 4 due to many faulty postal ballots.

On December 4, 2016, Van der Bellen won the elections with 53.69% of the votes. He took office as President of Austria on January 26, 2017.

Personal Life. He was married to his first wife for over 50 years and has two children. In 2015, he married for the second time.

21.01.2023