Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen took quite a long time to announce that he would be running for a second term.

On Sunday afternoon, the news came from the Vienna Hofburg, in the form of text snippets and a video on social media: "Dear Austrians and everyone who lives here, I am again running for the office of Federal President of the Republic of Austria".

In view of the "troubled times" in Europe, he wants to continue to put his experience at the service of the country.

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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The repeated candidacy of the former Greens chairman does not come as a surprise.

He enjoys good approval ratings from the general public. In a survey conducted at the beginning of the year, more than half of those surveyed said that he should remain in the Hofburg for another five years.

But he took his time.

This was to be interpreted tactically, because the other parties only wanted to make definitive statements about their own possible candidates when it was certain that they would have to stand up to the incumbent.

"Should I stay or should I go?"

Shortly before the weekend, however, an official Tiktok video with pictures of Van der Bellen and the soundtrack "Should I stay or should I go?" by "The Clash" was already circulating.

The song is about an unnerved person's strife at the fickle darling's fickleness - quite coquettish for someone who has hesitated with the announcement for a long time.

With the singer, Van der Bellen should be clear about the alternative: "If I go there will be trouble.

An' if I stay it will be double."

The 78-year-old politician, who led the Greens in Austria for many years, but then seemed to be on the gentle retreat with a seat on the Vienna City Council, surprisingly came to the top of the state in 2016 after a drama in three and a half ballots.

In the first round of direct elections, he was ahead and came into the runoff against the right-wing FPÖ candidate, Norbert Hofer.

The applicants of the former people's parties SPÖ and ÖVP had left the two far behind.

Because of counting errors, the second ballot, which Van der Bellen won extremely narrowly, had to be repeated.

Then the repeat election had to be postponed due to defective postal ballot envelopes.

In December 2016 he then won relatively clearly with 53.79 percent against Hofer.

The FPÖ politician, then as now the third President of the National Council, has apparently already made it clear internally that he does not want to run again, at least not if it were against Van der Bellen again.

But there will still be a right-wing counter-candidate, FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl left no doubt about that.

He recently went to court with the incumbent and accused him of partisan leadership.

The FPÖ is likely to see the presidential election as an opportunity to raise their profile and mobilize.

No ÖVP and SPÖ candidates to be expected

The Christian Democratic ÖVP and the Social Democratic SPÖ, on the other hand, will not send their own personnel to an election that has little prospect of success.

Especially since the presidential election is formally a personality election, i.e. parties do not compete against each other and they are therefore not entitled to compensation for campaign costs.

In view of the last two early National Council elections (2017 and 2019), your campaign budget is still in need of recovery.

Van der Bellen, on the other hand, can draw on the office bonus, even if he expressly assured on Sunday that he would not use any funds from the President's Office for his application.

The liberal Neos want to support the incumbent, the SPÖ leadership also expressed this in mind on Sunday.

The chancellor party ÖVP will certainly not send its own applicant against the man from the ranks of its green coalition partner in the race.

Van der Bellen has to do without his campaign manager from 2016, Lothar Lockl.

Last week he was elected as the Greens representative to chair the ORF Foundation Council, the supervisory body for public broadcasting.

In this function, the owner of a PR agency had already made it clear that direct political involvement was out of the question.

There will still be close personal ties between Van der Bellen's candidacy and the Greens.

The Austria Press Agency reported that an association called "Together for Van der Bellen - Independent Initiative to Strengthen Liberal Democracy" will support the "independent candidate".

The spokesman for the campaign is Stephan Götz-Bruha, who recently left the office of Vice Chancellor and Green Party leader Werner Kogler.