The Federal President is in the pre-election campaign and has discovered a new method for himself: highly political campaign speeches at the opening of the festival.
Last week, Alexander Van der Bellen told the Bregenz audience that "nothing will ever be the same".
Politicians allowed themselves to be deceived by Russian President Vladimir Putin – and so did he himself. Now the price is being paid.
The head of state put pressure on the Austrian federal government – with unusual vehemence for his circumstances: You now have to »sorry: work, work«, he explained from the stage in the direction of Vienna.
Van der Bellen has little to lose.
Not even his political competition for the October 9 presidential election thinks they have a serious chance against him.
In Austria, the Federal President is elected directly by the citizens; if no one receives more than 50 percent of the votes, there is a run-off election.
However, re-election as Federal President is only permitted once.
Van der Bellen will face his last election in the fall - and it's basically decided.
Neither the governing party ÖVP nor the SPÖ nor the liberal Neos nominate their own applicants.
There are several outsider candidates, otherwise only the Freedom Party send someone into the race: The FPÖ veteran Walter Rosenkranz - a hard right, who should also radiate into the middle-class camp.
In 2016, the Liberal candidate Norbert Hofer Van der Bellen was narrowly defeated.
The struggle between "freedom and despotism" has only just begun
Today, Tuesday, the Federal President followed suit - this time at the opening of the Salzburg Festival.
He hardly touched on the cultural event itself.
Current political events cannot be "taken off in the cloakroom and sink into music," he merely clarified.
Politically, however, the speech was tough: the debate "between despotism and freedom" had only just begun, he warned.
He doesn't want to give anyone false hope.
From Van der Bellen's point of view, the most realistic scenario is that "it will continue and even get worse" than before.
"That Putin will continue the brutal war" and cut off gas supplies "when it pleases him."
In this situation, the responsibility of politics is now to find clear words and to make preparations: "Our beautiful, much-loved, much-tested Austria is heading for a massive energy problem.
We are heading towards a massive inflation problem.
If no action is taken now, we are heading towards a massive loss of solidarity,” said Van der Bellen.
And that ultimately means a “massive threat to our democracy”.
It is a rare clarity that the Federal President is now developing during the election campaign after six years in office.
Van der Bellen, now 78 years old, had spent time in his presidency shedding the image of the green left;
just don't hit anything.
When Sebastian Kurz was still chancellor, he got along very well with the young conservative.
Van der Bellen only sought and found clear, sharp words in absolutely exceptional cases.
It seems Van der Bellen is warming up to his possible re-election
There were enough occasions.
During Van der Bellen's tenure, two government crises and numerous ministerial changes and scandals occurred with the Ibiza affair and the ÖVP advertisement cause, which Kurz finally brought down.
He has made 69 swearings since 2016.
He was President of an Austria in an almost permanent state of political crisis.
However, he himself always remained calm, relaxed, weighing, often simply silent.
Shortly before his likely re-election, he is now apparently thawing.
The fact that Van der Bellen is now discovering the genre of highly political festival speeches is understandable in terms of political strategy.
His team does not want to send him into any election duels and TV confrontations as the incumbent.
If possible, the Federal President should only communicate what he wants to say.
And that's what speeches are for.
Because for his first TV interview after the announcement of his re-candidate, Van der Bellen had to take a lot of criticism: he had not found any clear words for the alleged corruption affairs of the ÖVP.
The Federal President was too accommodating, discouraged, was the accusation at the time.
His campaign team now apparently wants to counter this with clear announcements.
There are no more festival speeches now, but there are no other occasions until the election, according to those around him.
Now it's a matter of collecting declarations of support.
The games may be considered open.
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In a broadcast, she now criticizes her own husband's corona policy.
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See you soon and best regards
Katharina Mittelstaedt, deputy Head of Department for Domestic Policy and Chronicle of DER STANDARD
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