Pirates in Prague! Czech local and senate elections 5-13 October 2018

[Diouf]

What sort of people make up Praha Sobě?

Leader Jan Čižinský is a former KDU-CSL member. Deputy Hana Třeštíková is a movie producer.
Politically, their main message is that they are transparent, against corruption, and focused on the problems of citizens. So fairly standard for protest/local movements. They list the five priorities below. Most of it is about spending money and governing in a better way, but to the extent they can be placed politically, it would say centre-left. In terms of voters, I will think they attract a fair share of publicly employed people (teachers, nurses) as well as people from cultural industries (they have a lot of architects as candidates, I believe).

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[Diouf]

In the second-largest city, Brno, ANO will no longer hold the mayor post. The other parties were fed up with ANO mayor Petr Vokřál, so instead a coalition has been built with ODS, KDU-CSL, Pirates and CSSD with ODS' Markéta Vaňková as the new Mayor.

[Doimper]

ODS WINS BUT PIRATES LIKELY TO RULE PRAGUE

tossup -> titanium arr

[Diouf]

The second round of senate election finished today, and since turnout is mostly only around 20%, counting is already done in most places.

The last time these senate seats were up for election in 2012, the Necas (ODS) government was already quite unpopular, so ODS went from 14 to 4 seats. The Social Democrats were the big beneficiaries as the biggest opposition parties; they went from 6 to 13 seats.

This time, ODS manages to claw some of these seats back and end up on 9 seats. While still some way from their historic heights, this election has certainly cemented their role as the biggest opposition party. Fiala is mostly trying to frame current politics as a classic left-right fight, with ODS as the centre-right option and ANO in CSSDs previous place as the centre-left. An expected collapse for CSSD which end up with only 1 seat. Again, regional candidates, independent candidates or candidates from ad hoc coalitions (often led by STAN or KDU-CSL) did very well and won 13 seats. 3 of the defeated presidential candidates from the 2018 election were all elected in Prague Senate seats. Jiri Drahos already won his seat in the 1st round, while Pavel Fischer and Marek Hilser secured their seats today.
Babis' ANO party also only won 1 seat as voters often voted against the party in 2nd round, and many seats were won by independents or regional candidates. This probably didn't decrease Babis' wish to remove the senate, which has limited powers. While certainly a good idea, I believe this requires the support of the senate itself, which might be hard to get. It is difficult to know exactly how all elected senators will caucus in the new senate, but there will probably be 4 groups at around 15 seats, ODS, CSSD, KDU-CSL and STAN. Retiring KDU-CSL leader Pavel Belobradek failed to win a senate seat in Nachod.

[Diouf]

The part of CSSD which lost the leadership election is already ready to knife Hamacek after the poor electoral showing. Sure, government participation could end up being harmful to the party, but perhaps a bit early to draw that big conclusion. They can hardly believe CSSD would have suddenly improved and delivered a great local/senate election if they hadn't joined the government.

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http://praguemonitor.com/2018/10/17/zimolas-faction-%C4%8Dssd-wants-reconstruct-party-and-government

http://praguemonitor.com/2018/10/16/chovancec-calls-%C4%8Dssd-leave-govt-ham%C3%A1%C4%8Dek-criticizes-him

[Diouf]

ZDENĚK HŘIB FROM THE PIRATE PARTY WILL BE PRAGUE’S NEW MAYOR

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https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/zdenek-hrib-from-the-pirate-party-will-be-pragues-new-mayor