Praha Soba narrowly failed to collect signatures, but she is running anyway. What is Čižinsky’s cult of personality enough for?
photo: Facebook / Adam Scheinherr
In order to run as a civic candidate, Praha Sobě needed the signatures of 7% of the citizens of Prague, so roughly 96,000. Citizen candidates are a rather special tool of the Czech municipal system, which is clearly intended more for small municipalities, where they do not want to establish political parties and where it is not so difficult to collect the signatures of less than a tenth of the population.
92 thousand – a lot or a little?
In Prague, Čižínského Praha Sobě dared to reach this goal for the first time four years ago. At that time, she collected just over 97,000 signatures. This year, politicians and activists from Prague collected only 92,000 for themselves, which is not enough for a candidate. However, Čižinský has long-term prepared an alternative option for this situation – a political party called “We support the civic candidate PRAHA SOBĚ”, and under this legal form he will finally run for office this year.
Is not collecting signatures a failure? At first glance, of course yes, Prague itself chose this form and set it as its goal. Opponents will certainly claim that it is an expression of non-support on the part of the citizens and that it fails even before the elections. On the other hand, 350,000 to 400,000 people go to the municipal elections in Prague. If 92,000 Prague citizens approved more than one party two months before the elections, it doesn’t mean that it won’t run in the end.
July 18, 2022 • 11:57 p.m
Another level of the matter is this: it is a rather different discipline to collect signatures as an already ruling party and not as a protest movement interested in the favor of first-time voters. It follows from the reactions on Prague Soba’s social networks that people often do not understand why they have to dedicate their signature to the candidate again. In addition, Praha Sobě is actually closer in structure and functioning to a political party, when it comes to the apparatus of advisers and other employees. According to Jan Čižínský, the fact that active people who used to collect signatures are now often involved in helping refugees from Ukraine was a problem for Praha Sobá.
In Czech politics, Praha Sobé is essentially a unique phenomenon. In contrast to the Pirates and other protest-minded parties, it apparently managed to maintain the impression of a non-political, non-party platform, although its founder Čižinský was formerly a member of the People’s Assembly and the House of Representatives. During the election period, he founded the 3 thousand brave initiative, which was supposed to become a “political force”, but at the same time it did not want to compete with political parties. However, this project with a rather unclear goal soon disappeared. Finally, part of the politicians and activists of Prague Sobě is present at the creation of the Lidé PRO movement, which in the end (probably also due to the pandemic and the impossibility of collecting signatures) also stopped before the full launch.
June 18, 2022 • 4:44 p.m
A strong base and a cult of personality
There is no doubt that Praha Sobě is an initiative created authentically from below, but at the same time it builds on the personality cult of Čižínský, who in the last elections won the most preferential votes in Prague, an over-half majority in his home Prague 7, and within Prague Sobě is an unshakable authority. Compared to the vast majority of parties, Praha Sobé has a base of dedicated volunteers, which is also confirmed by the fact that this time, in addition to the municipality, fourteen other city districts are running for council, among which are most of the neighborhoods of the wider center, as well as residential areas on the outskirts of the metropolis.
According to Praha Sobě, a survey by the IPSOS agency, which commissioned itself, found that up to half of the citizens of Prague are considering her choice. These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt – a winter survey by the coalition Together showed the potential of Prague to itself at 23%. The parties usually have a lot of such research done and logically publish only those results that are favorable to them. However, it is true that before the last election, Prague Sobě did not have more than 10 percent in any survey, it won over 16 percent.
Prague’s real support for itself will be an interesting test of what kind of atmosphere in the media bubble corresponds to the opinions prevailing in the city. For example, if so many Prague residents really appreciate the new cycle lanes or last year’s criticized summer road closures, or if they would rather appreciate the construction of metro D, several tram lines or the repair of the Barrandovský bridge. Or whether and how the voters will accept the interpretation of Prague Sobě in the case surrounding the deputy for STAN Hlubuček, as well as their claim that there is a threat of a new municipal majority in Prague in the composition of the coalition TOGETHER with the ANO movement.
June 29, 2022 • 3:39 p.m
October 8, 2020 • 8:25 p.m