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

[Diouf]

On 5-6 October 2018 Czechs will go to the polls for local and senate elections across the country. Local elections are held in all municipalities, while a third of the senate seats are up for grabs. In senate seats where no candidate wins a majority, the two top votegetters face off on 12-13 October 2018.

A SANEP poll this summer showed a tight three-way battle for first place in the Prague local elections with the insurgent Pirate party just ahead. ODS and ANO are not far behind, and the TOP09-STAN coalition is also in double digits. In 2014 ANO just pipped TOP09 to first place, and formed a coalition with the Triple Coalition (Greens, KDU-CSL, STAN) and CSSD. ANO leader Adriana Krnáčová became the first female mayor of Prague, but isn't running this time. Elsewhere in the country, ANO or local parties will likely top the polls most places. SANEP also polled in the other big cities (Brno, Ostrava, Plzen, Liberec, Ústi Nad Labem) and all saw ANO in relatively clear leads. ANO made their breakthrough in the 2014 elections, where they became the biggest party nationwide with 14.59%. They won the mayor post in all the mentioned big cities except Plzen (CSSD), but two of the mayors in these cities left the party during the term.



http://www.sanep.cz/pruzkumy/komunalni-volby-v-praze-publikovano-23-8-2018/

[Diouf]

TNS/Kantar polls for Ceske Televize of the biggest cities in the local elections. Note they use electoral potential (how many considers voting for a party) instead of normal figures.

In Prague, Pirates and ODS are tied for first place. Pirates are led by 37-year old doctor and health care researcher Zdeněk Hřib, while the ODS mayor candidate is from the other end of the age spectre. The 73-year old Bohuslav Svoboda was mayor from 2010 to 2013, where his coalition partners withdrew confidence. Later that year, he was elected an MP (and re-elected in 2017), but his actions in a collective transport project (OpenCard) during his time as mayor has meant he has been heavily involved in court proceedings. Spojené síly pro Prahu is a coalition of TOP09, STAN and KDU-CSL lead by TOP09's national leader Jiří Pospíšil. Praha sobě and Starostove pro Prahu is are parties/movements of local, independent canddiates.



In Brno, ANO is narrowly ahead of the ODS-Svobodni alliance


In Ostrava, ANO is far ahead

[Diouf]

New Prague Poll. This time with ODS narrowly ahead of Pirates and ANO. 25% undecided/not sure/others, but both KCSM and CSSD could have problems with the 5% hurdle. SPD would probably just get in on thse figures.




US News Report: In Czech Elections, Pirate Party Eyes Prague Mayor’s Seat

https://wtop.com/news/2018/09/in-czech-elections-pirate-party-eyes-prague-mayors-seat/

[Diouf]

I'm sure they are all bohemians, except the moravians and silesians.

I was mainly concerned about the hipsters but geographical voting is also good to know.

Here's the latest TNS/Kantar poll for parliament with splits.





Celkem is all. Muzi are men, zeny are women. The next are age splits. The next is split in education with primary school and semi-skilled, secondary education and skilled, higher education. The latter is size of town/city. Up to 5.000, 5.000-90.000, over 90.000, Prague.

[Diouf]

Voting has started. Polls will close tomorrow at 14.00

[Diouf]

Top politicians voting:

PM and ANO leader Andrej Babiš


President Miloš Zeman


SPD leader Tomio Okamura


Minister of Interior and CSSD leader Jan Hamáček


Pirate Leader Ivan Bartoš


ODS leader Petr Fiala


TOP09 leader and lead candidate for Spojené síly pro Prahu (TOP09, STAN, KDU-CSL, minor parties) at the local elections, Jiří Pospíšil


TOP09 deputy group leader Markéta Adamová


#dogsatpollingstations

[Diouf]

CT24 will start their election studio at 13.30. 30 minutes before polls close

https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/#live

[Diouf]

Polls have closed and results will soon start to come in from the smallest polling places.

Local results here: https://volby.idnes.cz/komunalni-volby-2018.aspx

Senate results here: https://volby.idnes.cz/senat-2018.aspx

[Diouf]

Four years ago, the turnout was 44.46%. An hour ago, CT reported the current turnout as 40%, so I guess we will be a bit lower this time.

[Diouf]

9.9% counted for local elections, 5.64% for senate elections.

Very little from the four biggest cities yet. Only a tiny bit from Ostrava, which unsurprisingly looks very good for ANO

[Diouf]

The rules for the Czech local elections are a bit funny. You have as many votes as there are seats on the council. So normally, all bigger parties will have as many candidates as there are seats. So if you just "X" in the box with your party, each candidate on the list will get one vote each. However, you can also pick and mix. You can vote for specific candidates from 3-4 different parties, and then vote for a party as well. Your votes will then count for the specific candidates first, and then afterwards the remaining votes will go to the members on your party list.

In the one, tiny ward from Ostrava which has been counted so far, there seem to have been only two voters. One voting list for ANO, so they get 55 votes, one for each candidate on the list, while the other voter just voted specifically for two CSSD candidates, who have gotten one vote each. So the result of the ward is 55 votes for ANO, 2 for CSSD. I'm guessing a fair few voters might not understand this system fully.

[Diouf]

Prague results: https://volby.idnes.cz/komunalni-volby-2018.aspx?t=vysledky-obec&o=1&o2=CZ0100&o3=554782&obec=praha-hl.m.

Brno results: https://volby.idnes.cz/komunalni-volby-2018.aspx?t=vysledky-obec&o=11&o2=CZ0642&o3=582786&obec=brno

Ostrava results: https://volby.idnes.cz/komunalni-volby-2018.aspx?t=vysledky-obec&o=14&o2=CZ0806&o3=554821&obec=ostrava&rem=1

Plzen results: https://volby.idnes.cz/komunalni-volby-2018.aspx?t=vysledky-obec&o=4&o2=CZ0323&o3=554791&obec=plzen

0.67% counted in Ostrava so far. 20.04% nationally.

[Diouf]

41.82% counted nationally, and we are starting to get results from the biggest cities.

Nationwide, local candidates dominate the picture. KDU-CSL and STAN with strong local roots are also getting many councillors elected in minor towns.

In Ostrava, 8.36% are counted and ANO is far ahead. They are on 35.78%, with local Ostravak in second on 10.16% followed by KCSM on 9.26%. In 2014, ANO won with 21.34% ahead of CSSD with 16.22%, but the Social Democrats are crashing down and are currently on 6.29%.

In Plzen, 8.7% are counted and it looks another close fight between ANO and ODS for first spot. In 2014, ANO finished first with 17.9% ahead of ODS on 17.55% and CSSD on 16.45%. Now, ANO is at 21.98% ahead of ODS on 20.92% while Pirates are in third on 10.99%. CSSD have crashed to 5.76%.

[Diouf]

ANO drawing ahead of ODS in Plzen. Lead is 23.29% to 19.96% with 27.72% counted.
ANO remains far ahead in Ostrava. They are on 33.69% with 23.75% counted.
The first 0.9% has come in Prague, where we will probably have both a tight race between the 3-4 biggest parties as well as several parties dancing around the threshold of 5%.

In the senate races, ANO is leading in 12, ODS leading in 10, CSSD in 5, KDU-CSL in 4. The remaining seats are lead by candidates from local parties, independents, alliances etc.

[Diouf]

3.32% counted in Prague.

ODS at 17.33%
Praha Sobe (local candidates) 17.04%
TOP09/STAN/KDU-CSL 16.99%
Pirates 16.69%
ANO 14.56%
SPD 3.8%
KSCM 3.43%
CSSD 3.11%

[Diouf]

With 12.28% counted in Prague, it looks very close between ODS and Pirates for 1st place. They are on 17.71% and 17.25% respectively. ANO at 16.31%, Praha Sobe at 15.67% and TOP09/STAN/KDU-CSL at 15.54%. These five parties, who are quite equal in size, could be the only five parties in the Prague City Hall. Currently both SPD, KSCM and CSSD are below the 5% threshold.

[Diouf]

There are even better result maps here.

Senate results here: https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/specialy/2597756-senatni-volby

Local results here: https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/specialy/2592148-komunalni-volby

In the local elections, you can choose a place by writing its name. It shows the current seat distribution.

Prague with 17.38% counted. ODS 14 seats, Pirates 14 seats, TOP09/STAN/KDU-CSL 13 seats, Praha Sobe 12 seats, ANO 12 seats. These are the only five parties above the treshold. Numberswise coalition-building will be quite simple; three parties needed to form a majority.

[Diouf]

29.5% counted in Prague. Pirates 378 votes ahead

[Diouf]

ODS WINS BUT PIRATES LIKELY TO RULE PRAGUE

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https://prague.tv/en/s72/Directory/c214-Business/n15893-ODS-wins-but-Pirates-likely-to-rule-Prague

[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.

[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