On June 28, Austria’s second largest city, Graz, elected a new council. The Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) secured 35.7 percent of the vote, once again emerging as the clear winner. Building on its historic 2021 success, the party — led by Mayor Elke Kahr — increased its vote share by nearly 7 percentage points. The win ensured Graz remains a political anomaly not just within Austria, but far beyond its borders.

The result is particularly remarkable given the political climate in Styria, the state of which Graz is capital. Since late 2024, Styria has for the first time been ruled by a governor from the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), Mario Kunasek. While the state government pursues a policy of harsh austerity and cuts to social services, Graz has stood firm as a very red island in a state that has experienced a significant shift to the right in recent years.

In the June elections, as in 2021, City Councilor for Health Robert Krotzer was ranked as the KPÖ’s number two candidate on the ballot, meaning he was one of the party’s top candidates. The thirty-nine-year-old is considered the designated successor to Mayor Elke Kahr. In this interview with Jacobin, Krotzer discusses the KPÖ’s election victory, the limits of local politics under neoliberal austerity, and the question of what socialist politics can realistically achieve given the current balance of power.