The Interior Ministry is due to announce results after 1330 GMT.
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He said their work during the campaign was “not lost but an investment in the future”, according to a translation by The Associated Press.
A record 700,000 postal ballots were counted during Monday, dramatically putting Van der Bellen ahead by just over 31,000 votes in the final tally.
The near victory of the far-right in Sunday’s Austrian elections is a symptom of the rise of populism in Europe, experts said on Tuesday, warning that the move towards the right held risks for investors and the broader euro zone economy.
The two rivals had finished neck-and-neck in Sunday’s elections, with Mr. Van der Bellen scoring 48.1 per cent against the 51.9 per cent collected by Mr. Hofer, from the Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant Freedom party.
“You will be amazed what a president is capable of”, Mr Hofer said during the campaign.
Although a largely ceremonial role, the Austrian president has important powers including the ability to dismiss the country’s cabinet.
EgyptAir crash: Pilot did make distress call before descent, claims French mediaThe two candidates of the governing coalition of the Social Democratic and People’s parties were eliminated in last month’s first round.
Those parties have dominated Austrian politics since the end of World War II and winners of all previous presidential elections since then have been backed by one of the two.
Regarding the nearly 50-50 split in the election, Van der Bellen noted that “each half is just as important as the other” and that “together we create this wonderful Austria”.
Media around the continent began reporting that Hofer had finally been defeated by Van der Bellen after postal votes were taken into account, but it is now certain that the right-wing candidate will not become Austria’s head of state. This was the final straw for Werner Faymann of the SPOe, who quit as chancellor on May 9.
Few people outside the Freedom Party had even heard of Hofer before the presidential election.
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And while Austria’s president is largely a figurehead, Hofer had promised to push the limits of his powers in office, attending European Union meetings and throwing a wrench in trade deals that had been worked out elsewhere in the government. In the Washington Post, Anthony Faiola lists Hofer as one of the “Donald Trumps of Europe”. All are polling strongly ahead of national elections in France, the Netherlands and Germany next year.
