The PR consultant and frequent partygoer is known for his love of the spotlight. The project to take over the SPÖ chairmanship is “100 percent serious,” he says – and is not a wrecking ball for others.
It was like a joke, but it was really “100 percent serious,” says Rudolf “Rudi” Fußi to the “Presse”. The SPÖ has been known to be good for surprises at least since the Excel chaos at the Linz party conference in 2023. The news that Fußi now has serious ambitions for another SPÖ party chairmanship was on Monday. This means that one of the most polarizing personalities of the “Vienna Bubble” is entering the front row of the SPÖ. With sometimes polemical attacks and bare-handed attacks, Fussi has made a name for himself over the years A series of personal controversies runs through his posts; in television appearances and cabaret programs he makes strong statements, even against his own party.
This is certainly due to the habit of not taking the truth of his claims very seriously. Companions call him self-centered and a little “crazy”. He himself says in a “Standard” portrait from last year: “I prefer critics to people.”
Fussi’s main job is PR consultant. In 2012 he founded his agency, whose clients included the Stronach team. In an episode of the “Press” podcast last year, he emphasized that there is no party on his payroll at the moment. The agency’s website, which only provides contact information, does not provide information about current customers. Since 2023 he has been a member of SPÖ again after an eleven-year break. The now 46-year-old started with the JVP, which he soon left. This was followed by a commitment to the FPÖ spin-off Die Demokaten, which was the platform of The Independents Richard Lugner. In 2002 he started the “referendum against interceptors,” which received 624,807 signatures. In 2003, Fußi finally joined the SPÖ.
Political across the board
The transfer from Alfred Gusenbauer to Werner Faymann in 2008 sparked internal controversy. Frustration with Faymann led to his resignation in 2012, when he sharply criticized Faymann and the then federal managing director, Laura Rudas. Later, he is said to have been behind the offensive Facebook account “Werner Failmann,” which paved the way for the whistleblower concert against Faymann on May 1, 2016. When Christian Kern took over, Fußi rose to the top of the party: he was Kern’s speechwriter and played a key role in his “Plan A”. However, his ambitions in Silberstein’s business were affected during the 2017 election campaign: In WhatsApp conversations, he harassed an employee of the SPÖ councilor Tal Silberstein, who was responsible for the dirty campaign against Sebastian Kurz. She should admit that she passed the internal information to the ÖVP. In 2018 he was acquitted of coercion charges.