Czech Local Elections Deliver Warning to Babis’s Governing Coalition

Czech PM Andrej Babis votes in Průhonice in the municipal elections. Source: Facebook / Andrej Babis With all the votes counted by Sunday midday and on a relatively strong 48 per cent turnout, Czechia’s municipal elections of October 9-10 did not bring any major upheavals of the political scene, yet indicate some changes in voting preferences, less than a year after the coalition government of Prime Minister Andrej Babis took office. Contrary to national elections, identifying a clear winner is difficult, especially so early after voting day: once again, the largest share of votes went to a network of local associations and independent candidates, who secured over 50,000 seats this year out of 62,000, and post-election coalition talks across Czech towns and cities can take weeks, if not months. Czech voters also cast their ballot for a third of the Senate’s seats over the weekend, with 22 out of 27 mandates needing a second round on October 16-17. With close to 1,500 council seats, Prime Minister Babis said the municipal elections confirmed that his ANO party “is the strongest political force at all levels”, except for the Senate. ANO emerged first in six out of 13 regional capitals, compared with eight in 2022, including in Karlovy Vary, Pilsen, Ostrava and Olomouc. Despite the boast, most analysts point out that ANO underperformed compared to four years ago in terms of both municipal seats and the popular vote. It also recorded its worst-ever result in Prague and suffered a surprising setback in the northern city of Usti nad Labem, a long-time stronghold. Meanwhile, ANO’s two junior partners in government also failed to mobilise their voters or reach their campaign goals. This includes the conservative Motorists for Themselves who, although focusing their campaign on larger cities, managed to break through only in Ostrava while suffering poor results in the country’s two largest cities of Prague and Brno. “I’m not happy about it, I’m not pleased,” admitted party leader and Foreign Minister Petr Macinka. On top of that, the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party of House Speaker Tomio Okamura came out of the elections with less than 170 municipal council seats. “We have to think about what we will have to change and how we will behave until the next elections,” SPD vice-chairman Radim Fiala said as the party prepares to hold a national conference to reflect on its poor results. Released on Sunday, a national poll put this weekend’s local ballot into national perspective. ANO remains the strongest party by a large margin but slightly weakened from six months ago, winning over 31 per cent of the vote if a general election was held today. STAN would come second in any general election with close to 17 per cent of the vote, well ahead of ODS (11 per cent), the far-right SPD (7.5 per cent) and the liberal Pirates (7 per cent). Both the Motorists and KDU-CSL would not pass the 5 per cent threshold needed to enter the lower house. STAN in the opposition lead Among the opposition ranks, both the centre-right STAN movement and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) have been described as the main winners. Far less prominent at the national level but known for its strong local networks at the municipal level, KDU-CSL once again secured the highest number of council seats out of all the parliamentary parties, close to 2,000. The first-round victory in the Senate of their chairman Jan Grolich can also be seen as a key achievement in strengthening the party’s clout and legitimacy. But in line with the opinion polls from the past few months, it’s the STAN movement that stands out in this weekend’s ballot with the strongest momentum. The party racked up the second highest number of municipal council seats and secured two senatorial mandates in the first round, with all its other candidates advancing to the second. Crucially, STAN also conquered Prague – edging out the current-ruling ODS by 1 percentage point – and their mayoral candidate Petr Hlavacek is widely expected to hold the keys to the capital following post-election talks. Additionally, the coalition between STAN and KDU-CSL also emerged as the clear winner of the elections in Brno, the country’s second largest city. “We are the strongest opposition party, the results say so,” celebrated STAN chairman and former Interior Minister Vit Rakusan. ODS, the largest opposition party in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, is coming out of the weekend significantly weakened, underperforming in most regional capitals compared to 2022 on top of losing Prague and suffering a few unexpected first round senatorial defeats as well.