Judith Schwentner

Judith Schwentner (born 2 September 1968) is an Austrian journalist and politician of The Greens who has been Vice Mayor of Graz, the second-largest city in Austria, since 2021. She has also served as councillor in the city government since 2019 and a member of the municipal council since 2021. She previously sat as a member of the National Council from 2008 to 2017.

Education and professional career After attending an elementary school in the Eggenberg district of Graz and graduating from the Akademisches Gymnasium in 1986, Schwentner began Slavic and German studies at the University of Graz in 1987. She stayed in Moscow from 1992–93 for a research stay, and completed her studies the next year with a thesis on the life and work of the writer Avdotya Panaeva. She completed a supplementary course in "German as a foreign language" in 1993 and, in 2007 and 2008, a course on intercultural counselling for immigrants and organizations at the Innovative Sozialprojekte association.

From 1994 to 1995 Schwenter worked as a foreign lecturer at the University of Lviv in Ukraine. In the following years she returned to Graz and worked in journalism. From 1996 to 2000 she worked in the editorial department of the specialist magazine Camera Austria. She joined the editorial team of the street newspaper Das Megaphon in 1993 and became editor-in-chief from 2004 to 2008. She was re-elected in 2013 as one of only two directly-elected deputies for her party; the Greens were narrowly the most popular party in Graz. From 2013 to 2017, she was spokesperson for social affairs and senior citizens. She left the National Council when the Greens lost all their seats in the 2017 election. She was elected vice mayor on 17 November, receiving 42 votes out of 46.