Prague did not manage to collect enough signatures. They must run as an association
“We collected 92.5 thousand votes. So we nominated a candidate for the municipality as an association of independent candidates and political parties,” Čižinský told Novinkám.
Originally, Prague wanted to run with a so-called civic candidate. But in order to be able to strive for electoral votes in this way, according to the rules, she would have to collect the signatures of at least seven percent of the inhabitants of the given city. In the capital, it would be roughly 95,000 signatures.
Čižinský believes that it would be possible to collect the given number by August 2, which is the so-called correction deadline. “We would have collected the signatures at this rate, but we preferred a legally safer solution,” he reasoned.
At the same time, many events were organized to support Prague itself. For example, the photographer Tomáš Třeštík, who is the brother of the current councilor for culture Hana Třeštíková (Prague sebo), also participates in the collection of signatures.
Čižinsky is now not worried that this would be a bad start to the election campaign. “I think it’s not that big of a disappointment,” he added.
“We are considered by almost half of the voters”
According to him, however, Prague had a pre-election survey conducted by Ipsos on a thousand respondents, according to the results of which we are considering a grouping of almost half of the eligible voters. “We are going to the elections with great hope. We don’t want to allow Prague to take ODS again,” he also outlined possible post-election cooperation scenarios.
In addition to the citizen democrats who are running in Prague as part of the SPOLU coalition (with TOP 09 and KDU-ČSL), he also ruled out cooperation with the communists and the SPD.
Prague now rules itself in the metropolis together with the Pirates and the United Forces for Prague (TOP 09 and STAN). This coalition has a majority of 39 votes in the 65-member assembly. The Prague elections were won in 2018 by the ODS, which has 14 mandates. In second place came the Pirates, who have 13 representatives, the same number as the third Praha Sobě and the fourth United forces for Prague. ANO has 12 representatives.