Norbert Hofer

Norbert Hofer (center)

Norbert Hofer (born March 2, 1971) is a conservative Austrian politician and a member of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). He is most famous for his unsuccessful campaign for Austrian president in 2016, a very close race, and for being the Third President of the National Council (one of three members).

Hofer was born on March 2, 1971 in Vorau in eastern Austria.^[1] He completed secondary engineering school in 1990 with a specialization in aeronautics.^[1] After serving his legally mandated military service, in 1990-91, Hofer served as an aeronautical engineer for Austrian Airlines from 1991-94.^[1]

Starting in 1994, Hofer started working for the FPÖ, first as an organization officer in the Burgenland chapter of the party and eventually advancing to positions of party leadership.^[1] Hofer has held several positions of party leadership^[1] and he served as an advisor to FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache.^[2]

In 1997, Hofer was elected a council member of the City of Eisenstadt, a position he would serve in until 2007.^[1] In 2005, he became the deputy chairman of the national FPÖ, and the next year he was elected to the Austrian National Council.^[1] In October 2013, Hofer became the Third President (third most senior leader, after the Austrian People's Party and Social Democratic Party leaders).^[1] In 2016, during the postponed presidential election, Hofer, along with the other two National Council presidents, served as the joint acting president of Austria.^[3]

Results of the first round of the 2016 Austrian presidential election, where the FPÖ (blue) received its best election result at the time (although it was surpassed in the two runoff elections).

Hofer ran for President of Austria (a largely ceremonial role) in 2016. In the first round of the election, Hofer received 35.1 percent of the vote, which at the time was the FPÖ's best result in a national election in its history.^[4] Although Hofer lost the run-off election by less than one percentage point, Austria’s Constitutional Court ordered a re-run of the election due to irregularities in mail-in ballots.^[5] The election was eventually postponed until December 4, 2016.^[6][7]

Although Hofer faced a far-left^[2] Green Party candidate in the runoff who supported increased European integration and immigration, despite evidence that contrary positions were necessary, many establishment "conservatives" (who actually align more with leftists) strongly opposed Hofer and endorsed his opponent, Alexander Van der Bellen.^[8] Hofer, however, received support from disillusioned working-class voters.^[9] Additionally, far-left European leaders, who cannot tell the difference between a conservative and a Nazi, slanderously compared Hofer to a "Nazi."^[10]

Hofer lost the December 4 election, although the FPÖ vowed to fight on.^[11]

It must be noted that as the campaign progressed, Hofer moderated his positions in order to attract more votes, something which possibly actually played a part in his defeat.^[12]

While Hofer has been called "far-right" by left-leaning media outlets, he has described himself as "middle right" during the 2016 election.^[13] Hofer is a gun enthusiast and regularly carries a Glock.^[2] He strongly opposes Islam.^[2] Although Hofer is skeptical of the socialist and globalist European Union and supports "putting Austria first,"^[2] he opposed a referendum to leave the power-hungry organization during the 2016 election (although he originally supported such a referendum before attempting to moderate his views).^[13] He still supported leaving the EU if Turkey joined.^[13]

During the 2016 Austrian presidential election, one of Hofer's campaign slogans was "So help me God," which was created to reflect Europe's strong Christian heritage.^[14] However, Protestant Christian leaders, who in Europe are politically and theologically radical liberal, criticized Hofer for the slogan because of his opposition to large-scale immigration—even though other biblical Christian options exist for helping refugees that promise less unnecessary upheaval.^[14][15]

Hofer converted to Protestantism from Roman Catholicism due to his belief that women should be clergy—a position unsupported and even spoken against in the Bible and one that theologically conservative Protestants also denounce.^[10] His wife and children remain Roman Catholic.^[10] Hofer has four children.^[2]

Due to a 2003 paragliding accident, Hofer walks with a cane.^[2]

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