SPÖ manager Pultar:

“Yes, I was the captain and Bernhard was the striker”

Despite countless 14-hour working days during the election campaign, Vincent Pultar looks fresh. He is the man behind Bernhard Auinger.(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

As campaign manager, Vincent Pultar steered his boss Bernhard Auinger into the mayoral office of the city of Salzburg. What makes the 31-year-old political talent tick and what was most satisfying on election Sunday.

Days before Christmas, Vincent Pultar tore a muscle fiber in his right calf during a massage (!). Since then, his running shoes have been stored in the cupboard of his small apartment in the old town. Instead, the 31-year-old campaign manager has been running for his life politically. From house to house for every single vote - with success. After election defeats in 2017 and '19, the mayoral office went to Bernhard Auinger of the SPÖ in run three.

New mayor Auinger explicitly praised Pultar's work(Bild: Berger Susi)

Pultar played a part in this. He pulled the strings in the Auinger team. He pretended not only to position himself against the S-Link, but also to stand up for a better transport policy. With this issue, the Reds had a real unique selling point.

Bernhard Auinger will do a great job for the next five years. But of course, I can imagine being mayor one day.

Vincent Pultar

"Yes, you could say that I was the captain of the team and Bernhard was the striker," grins Pultar. "But we have a top team overall, everyone was captain. Tarik Mete, for example, Andrea Brandner, Hannelore Schmidt, Sebastian Lankes, to name just a few."

Pultar told "Krone" editor Snobe what it was like to be Auinger's campaign manager at the age of 24 and what lies ahead now(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

Pultar's career was mapped out. "We were already talking about politics at the breakfast table," Pultar remembers his youth in Liefering and his father Josef, Heinz Schaden's office manager for many years. At the age of 21, while studying political science, Vincent Pultar joined the Schaden era as a campaign assistant.

I like to be accused of populism when it comes to the S-Link. We knew that the majority were fundamentally against it.

Vincent Pultar

Those in the know attest to the tall amateur footballer's potential as mayor: "I can imagine it. But now it's a question of which projects we will implement with Bernhard over the next five, probably even ten years. I'm just finding my feet now!"

There is still little time for Pultar to rest. There are many rounds of negotiations about the city government and more 14-hour working days to come. Nevertheless, the talented politician, who married his Barbara in 2022, looks fresh. "I'm not gloating. But in 2019, when we didn't become mayor for the second time, it wasn't too stupid for the then ÖVP provincial parliamentary party chairman Wolfgang Mayer to tag me on his private Facebook page, writing something like: 'Vincent Pultar will go down as the worst campaign manager in history'. I remembered this post during the run-off election. That's really satisfying and gives me strength."