Editing Heinz Fischer (section)

==Political career==
[[File:Austrian federal president's re-election party, Vienna 20100425.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Re-election party in 2010]]
Fischer was a member of the Austrian parliament, the [[National Council of Austria|National Council]], from 1971, and served as its [[List of Presidents of the National Council of Austria|president]] from 1990 to 2002. From 1983 to 1987 he was minister for science in a coalition government headed by [[Fred Sinowatz]].

===First term as president===
In January 2004 Fischer announced that he would run for president to succeed [[Thomas Klestil]].  He was [[2004 Austrian presidential election|elected]] on 25 April 2004 as the candidate of the opposition [[Social Democratic Party of Austria|Social Democratic Party]]. He polled 52.4 per cent of the votes to defeat [[Benita Ferrero-Waldner]], then foreign minister in the ruling conservative coalition led by the [[Austrian People's Party|People's Party]].

Fischer was sworn in on 8 July 2004 and took over office from the college of presidents of the National Council, who had acted for the president following Klestil's death on 6 July.

===Second term as president=== 
[[File:Yukio Hatoyama and Heinz Fischer at the Japanese Kantei in 2009 (1).jpg|thumb|Fischer with Japanese prime minister [[Yukio Hatoyama]] in Tokyo on 30 September 2009]]
[[File:Kirchner&Fischer.png|thumb|Fischer with Argentine president [[Cristina Fernández de Kirchner]] in the [[Casa Rosada|Pink House]].]]
[[File:Fischer Ostermayer Klug f3 Michelides.jpg|thumb|With ministers [[Josef Ostermayer|Ostermayer]] and [[Gerald Klug|Klug]] at the opening of the [[Memorial for the Victims of Nazi Military Justice]] on the [[Ballhausplatz]]]] 
[[File:Ali Khamenei receives Heinz Fischer in his house (3).jpg|thumb|Fischer with Iranian supreme leader [[Ali Khamenei]] in Tehran on 8 September 2015]]
In April 2010, Fischer was [[2010 Austrian presidential election|re-elected president of Austria]], winning a second six-year term in office with almost 79% of the votes. The [[voter turnout]] of merely 53.6% was a record low.<ref name="Austria president sweeps to victory">{{cite web|url=http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/04/2010425175334560120.html|title=Austria president sweeps to victory|date=25 April 2010|access-date=25 April 2010|publisher=[[Al Jazeera Arabic|Al Jazeera]]}}</ref> Around a third of those eligible to vote voted for Fischer, leading the conservative daily ''[[Die Presse]]'' to describe the election as an "absolute majority for non-voters".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=357759&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21 |title= Gulf Times- Qatar's top-selling English daily newspaper - Homepage|website=www.gulf-times.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100602075455/http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=357759&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21 |archive-date=2 June 2010}}</ref> The reasons behind the low turnout may have been that pollsters had predicted a safe victory for Fischer (past Austrian presidents running for a second term had always won) and that the other large party, [[Austrian People's Party|ÖVP]], had not nominated a candidate of their own, and had not endorsed any of the three candidates. Prominent ÖVP members, unofficially but in public, even suggested to cast a blank vote, which 7% of the voters did.

=== Post-presidency ===
In 2017, he and former UN secretary-general [[Ban Ki-moon|Ban-Ki Moon]] co-founded the [[Ban Ki-Moon Centre for Global Citizens]], an international non-governmental organization to advance the [[Sustainable Development Goals]], headquartered in Vienna.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bundespräsident |date=2022-09-08 |title="Internationale Zusammenarbeit ist angesichts der aktuellen Herausforderungen wichtiger denn je!" |url=https://www.bundespraesident.at/aktuelles/detail/internationale-zusammenarbeit-ist-angesichts-der-aktuellen-herausforderungen-wichtiger-denn-je |access-date=2023-05-01 |website=www.bundespraesident.at |language=de-DE}}</ref>