Even a pseudo-communist remains a communist
Left-wing radicals who disguised themselves as leftists used to be called “crypto-communists.” Kay-Michael Dankl is not a crypto-communist, but an avowed one. If you judge him by his statements, this confession is misleading. Dankl supports property, has more manners than revolutionary nonsense and excludes expropriation – in contrast to the official KPÖ program. Dankl is at best a pseudo-communist who doesn’t care about ideology, but rather about political communication. And he masters this so well that he made the KPÖ-plus the second strongest party in the local council election on March 10, 2024 with 23.1 percent and impressively made it into the mayoral runoff election, in which he was defeated by the SPÖ candidate Bernhard Auinger 37.5 percent to 62.5 percent. Dankl exhausted his potential in the first round of voting. The decisive votes for Auinger probably also came from citizens who reject the label “communism” chosen by Dankl out of historical awareness. Even a pseudo-communist remains a communist.
Even boring people can be winners
The new mayor of Salzburg, Bernhard Auinger, 50, is a bore – in the best sense of the word. The trained mechanical engineer is less skilled at political communication than the academic Dankl, 35. It wasn’t until the runoff election that Auinger was able to counteract the appeal of the new with an atout: his experience. He has been deputy mayor of Salzburg since 2017. He managed his office more than he shaped it. There was little left in the ÖVP-led city government of grandiose reform announcements – such as the “brutal approach” to housing and transport policy. Now he is mayor himself, has a majority in the local council with the KPÖ and could “brutally drive in” wherever he pleases with Dankl. However, Auinger is a – boring – pragmatist who will strive for broad majorities. As a type, the new mayor is reminiscent of the Carinthian Governor Peter Kaiser, who also puts bland objectivity over entertaining political communication. Bernhard Auinger’s biography provides material for a red hero saga: from a mechanical engineering apprentice from a Salzburg working-class family to the mayor of the festival city.
Salzburg is not bourgeois, but also not social democratic
The image of the bourgeois, conservative Lodenmantel Salzburg is a powerful cliché, even more powerful than Mozartkugel and Nockerl. Since the end of the war, the SPÖ has been the strongest party in 16 of 17 local council elections; only in 2019 was the ÖVP ahead thanks to the Sebastian Kurz effect. In terms of political conditions, Graz, Innsbruck and Bregenz are much more “bourgeois” than the city of Salzburg, in which Bernhard Auinger and his SPÖ have now restored the traditional order – but only in the sense that the Social Democrats are the strongest party and have the mayor provides. With 25.6 percent, the SPÖ achieved the worst result in its history in the local council election two weeks ago. A new competitor has emerged in the form of the KPÖ. There is space on the left. The SPÖ cannot be assured that it has the mayor of the largest (Vienna), the third largest (Linz) and Salzburg, the fourth largest city in the country. Salzburg may not be bourgeois, but it is no longer necessarily social democratic either.