Elections as a solution to the crisis? Prague would wait long months for a new leadership
One of the ways to solve the situation in the leadership of Prague after the disintegration of the ANO, CSSD and Trojkoalice groups is to call new elections to the capital council. However, given the legal conditions for this step and the deadlines associated with it, this option is rather theoretical and lengthy. Praguers would have to wait at least three months for the new council, as did residents of other municipalities. Prague politicians have not yet mentioned the possibility of new elections.
According to the law, new elections would take place in Prague if more than half of the current 65 representatives of the capital decided to give a mandate and their deputies would do the same.
Mayor Adriana Krnáčová (YES) or her eventual successor then had to send a proposal to call an election to the Ministry of the Interior within 30 days. Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (CSSD) would have to call an election within the same time limit. Municipal elections must be announced no later than 90 days before they are used.
Unlike the parliamentary elections, the law on municipal elections, according to which the city council is also elected, does not provide for a shortening of election deadlines. The candidates would thus have to be drawn up and submitted within 66 days before the election.
Another way to a new election under the Act on Municipalities and the Capital City of Prague was the dissolution of the Ministry of the Interior. However, the inmate could do so if the council did not meet in a quorum for six months. another reason would be if it did not respect the court’s decision on the obligation to call a local referendum.
Until the election of a new council, its tasks would be performed with limited powers by either the current council or the city council. If that didn’t work either, Prague would be run only by the mayor.
After last year’s elections, YES, the CSSD and the Troika Coalition ruled in Prague with the narrowest majority of 33 votes. The coalition disbanded after four of the 11 councilors were removed. Disputes between the parties escalated further when the council removed the chairman of the Territorial Development Committee, Jan Slezák (ČSSD).
The three-party coalition has declared that it is going to negotiate a coalition with TOP 09 and the ODS. How and when the new city leadership will be assembled, no one will say yet. None of the political parties has yet succeeded in gaining a majority in the 65-member council.
It won’t get any better. It should be worse now, says Andrej Babiš