Austria's presidential 'gladiators' in last TV duel before

The two candidates in Austria's closely watched presidential race met for a final TV duel ahead of a runoff vote this weekend, which could see the arrival of the European Union's first far-right president.
Sunday's showdown pits 45-year-old Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPOe) against the Green-backed economics professor Alexander van der Bellen, 72.
In previous encounters, the pair had traded increasingly aggressive barbs, exposing their glaring differences over the migrant crisis and the European Union.
The mud-slinging reached a crescendo last weekend when they tore each other down for 45 minutes on private Austrian channel ATV without a presenter to moderate the debate.

"I'm talking about Europe: E-U-R-O-P-E. Never heard of it?" taunted van der Bellen his opponent at one stage.
"My God, the schoolmasterliness, Herr Doctor Van der Bellen," his agitated rival shot back.

Commentators afterwards "described the show as an "embarrassing" fiasco.
In contrast, yesterday's 100-minute-long debate on the public broadcaster ORF was a mostly subdued affair, primarily summarising the candidates' main campaign points.
"If you put two gladiators in an arena, it can happen that the two argue in a heated manner," said Hofer as he tried to downplay last Sunday's fiasco.
The far-right candidate went on to reiterate his intention to be "a much more active" president.

"The position has a lot of authority and weight in Austria and abroad, and you can achieve a lot," he said.
Hofer has previously threatened to seize upon never-before-used presidential powers to fire the government if it failed to get tougher on migrants or boost the faltering economy.
Traditionally, the role has been held by a candidate from one of Austria's two main centrist parties since 1945.
But their crushing first-round defeat has now pushed Austria into unfamiliar territory.
However, Hofer -- who is also a lower house leader in the Austrian parliament -- stressed that his "personal views and values" would not prevent him from being a "non-partisan president".

For his part, van der Bellen repeated that he would not swear in FPOe leader Heinz-Christian Strache as chancellor if the far-right won the next general election scheduled in 2018.