State election 2025

VBB boss now wants to enter the provincial parliament

Governor Hans Peter Doskozil and VBB Managing Director Wolfgang Werderits.(Bild: LMS)

There is a big scramble for SPÖ list places for the 2025 state election in the Oberwart district. Wolfgang Werderits, the head of the Burgenland public transport company, is also starting his campaign for preferential votes.

After the National Council election is before the provincial election, and Burgenland is already getting into position. Elections will be held in January 2025 and the SPÖ has a clear agenda: the absolute majority must be defended. On Wednesday evening, the candidates for the regional elections were announced in the Oberwart district. Wolfgang Werderits provided a personnel surprise, although the rumor mill was already bubbling.

The managing director of Verkehrsbetriebe Burgenland (VBB) is in tenth place on the list. While still a police officer in the transport department, he made himself popular with Doskozil as a "doer" during the refugee crisis in 2015 when he quickly organized buses to transport the refugees. In 2020, he moved to the civil service.

Werderits says he is very interested in politics. He wants to get involved in the area of mobility in particular. He believes he has a good chance of entering the state parliament via preferential votes. However, the competition in the Oberwart district is huge.

Doskozil ahead of Schneemann and Prohaska in the Oberwart district
Governor Hans Peter Doskozil is the undisputed number one. He is followed by Leonhard Schneemann, Doris Prohaska and Christian Drobits, who resigned from the National Council at Doskozil's request. Incidentally, only sixth place remained for state parliament member Christian Dax, behind Olivia Kaiser, who also fought for votes in the National Council election campaign.

Incidentally, Werderits has already appeared on the political stage once before. In 2017, he ran for the office of mayor in his home municipality of Rotenturm, but lost the primary election to the eventual winner Manfred Wagner.