Council vote will decide Pinkafeld’s next mayor

A contested vote in Pinkafeld’s municipal council will decide who succeeds Mayor Kurt Maczek, who is stepping down a year before the scheduled local elections, ORF’s Burgenland service reports.

Maczek, 71, has been mayor since 2002. He is due to leave office as planned, with the vote set for Thursday evening. Adrian Kubat, the municipality’s second deputy mayor and a Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) candidate, is seeking to take over. Carina Laschober-Luif, the first deputy mayor and a member of the state parliament for the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), is also running.

Laschober-Luif said she had run in the 2022 election and would also stand in 2027, making her mayoral bid a logical step.

Kubat said he wanted to continue Maczek’s work. He said Maczek had built a great deal over the past 24 years and that the municipality should continue what has worked while also making use of new opportunities.

The vote is finely balanced: the SPÖ and ÖVP each hold 11 seats on the council. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), with two seats, and NEOS, with one, could therefore determine the result.