Alexander Van der Bellen

President of Austria

18 January 1944 Greater Vienna, Alpine and Danube Reichsgaue, Greater German Reich

-

Incumbent

President of Austria Alexander Van der BellenPresident of AustriaIncumbentAssumed office 26 January 2017ChancellorChristian Kern Sebastian Kurz Brigitte Bierlein Sebastian KurzPreceded by Heinz FischerSpokesman of the Green PartyIn office 13 December 1997 – 3 October 2008Preceded by Christoph ChorherrSucceeded by Eva GlawischnigMember of the National CouncilIn office 7 November 1994 – 5 July 2012Nominated by Peter PilzAffiliationGreen Party Personal detailsBornAlexander Van der Bellen (1944-01-18 ) 18 January 1944 (age 77) Greater Vienna, Alpine and Danube Reichsgaue, Greater German Reich (now Vienna, Austria)Citizenship Estonian (1944–1958) Austrian (1958–present) Political partyIndependent (2016–present)Other political affiliations Social Democratic Party (before 1992) Greens (1992–2016) Spouse(s) Brigitte Hüttner ​ ​(m. 1962; div. 2015)​ Doris Schmidauer ​(m. 2015)​ Children2 sons (with Brigitte)ParentsAlma SieboldtAlexander Van der BellenRelativesVan der Bellen familyResidence Vienna (primary) Kaunertal, Tyrol (secondary) Alma materUniversity of Innsbruck (Dr. rer. oec.)ProfessionPoliticianeconomistuniversity professorAwardsList of honours and awardsSignatureWebsite Presidential chancellery Presidential Twitter Presidential Instagram Alexander Van der Bellen (German pronunciation: ; born 18 January 1944) is the current president of Austria. He previously served as a professor of economics at the University of Vienna, and after joining politics, as the spokesman of the Austrian Green Party. As a descendant of the Russian aristocratic von der Bellen (Van der Bellen) family of patrilineal Dutch ancestry, he was born in Austria to Russian and Estonian parents who were refugees from Stalinism, and became a naturalized citizen of Austria together with his parents in 1958. He was a member of the National Council representing the Green Party there from 1994 to 2012, and served as both leader of the party as well as its parliamentary group. He ran as a nominally independent candidate supported by the Greens in the 2016 presidential election, and finished second out of six in the first round before winning the second round against Norbert Hofer, a member of the Freedom Party. On 1 July, before he was due to be sworn into office, the results of the second round of voting were annulled by the Constitutional Court due to absentee votes being improperly counted too early, requiring the election to be re-held. On 4 December 2016, he won the ensuing election, taking approximately 54% of the vote. Van der Bellen has described himself as a centrist liberal and supports green and social liberal policies. As discussed in his 2015 book, he is supportive of the European Union and advocates European federalism. During the presidential election, he appealed to the political centre and was endorsed by the leaders of both the Social Democratic Party and the conservative People's Party. Van der Bellen is the second green president of a European Union country (after Raimonds Vējonis of Latvia) and the first to be directly elected by popular vote.