A coalition with purified STAN and decent people from Spolu is not excluded, Čižinský reports
In the last municipal elections, Jan Čižinský received the largest number of preferential votes. Now he will try to repeat the success with his Prague movement. If he succeeds, I would like to continue ruling Prague with Pirates and Mayors. “It is also possible to negotiate a coalition with Spolu, if the voters crucify decent people,” admits candidate for mayor and mayor of Prague 7, Jan Čižinský.
When the name Jan Čižinský is mentioned, many people still think of the term activist. Do you still consider yourself an activist?
I’m excited about the team we have. Now this will sound like bragging, but we have the most professional team in the municipality. We managed a fifth more investments than the previous coalition and most of them go to our councillors. It’s like we’ve reigned a year longer. Our people were willing to go from their very well paid positions to serve the city.
You didn’t answer that.
I am an active person. I have been managing the Prague 7 district for eight years and I am convinced that professionally. So I’d rather say I’m a professional.
According to critics and opponents, you don’t see too much investment. What do you think?
We’re building subway D. Just because it’s not causing the apocalypse, so it can’t be seen, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Our investments are not as crazy as the Blanka tunnel. Also, it has never happened in history that a square for traffic (a member of the Prague movement occupied by Adam Scheinherr at the municipality – editor’s note) discussed four building permits for Prague bridges: Trojská lávka, Štvanická lávka, Dvorecký and Barrandovský most.
Isn’t it the case that people tend to associate you with topics like free pub toilets, which you’ve been promoting recently?
Check out our results. And it doesn’t matter to us that people have nowhere to jump off, so it offers a discount to restaurant gardens for the fact that the operators will let people from outside to the toilet upon request. This is a practical thing.
If you become mayor, will you be mayor mainly for cyclists?
This is targeted defamation of competitors. I understand that it is offered when I ride my bike. In the center it is the fastest.
Beer too you support infrastructure for cyclists a lot, the square for transport Adam Scheinherr boasted record investments this year.
We support pedestrian infrastructure the most. This is our preferred mode of transportation.
Nevertheless, thanks to you, there has been a significant increase in cycle lanes in Prague. However, the safety of some is still being debated, for example the one in Bucharova street at the exit from Rozvadovská spojka, which connects to the D5 highway. Do you really think that there should be a cycle lane in such a place?
We always say the same thing. It is necessary to allow cyclists to pass through the city safely. Take the cargo bikes (trucks – editor’s note). Our town hall is a short distance from the Alza headquarters, and a large part of the goods are already transported there using cargo bikes. We want these bicycles to ride on roads, in cycle lanes, so that the driver knows that a person on a bicycle can be found there.
Prague is missing the second step and that is cycle paths. And these should arise from some cycle lanes. This is a challenge for the coming years. And I have a clear message for motorists: The more cyclists ride, the fewer people will drive and block you.
Have you personally ridden all the bike lanes in Prague so you know if they are all safe?
I drive around Prague as I need. Not to try the bike lanes. But I have the notoriously criticized ones, the ones I’ve driven through, and I have to say that it’s significantly safer for the cyclist, because the motorists are really waiting for him there.
Apart from the bike path, what would you like to do in the next election period and didn’t have time to do it now?
One of the rest is the insufficient number of places in secondary schools. It needs to be fixed very quickly. For example, I sent a tip to the municipality about a building that can be a high school, and I hope that the city will buy it and build a high school there.
How do you rate the municipal coalition with the Pirates?
I evaluate the results of the coalition very positively. A lot has been achieved and I would very much like Adam Scheinherr and Pavel Vyhnánek in Prague (deputy mayor for finance for Prague itself – editor’s note) they were the ones who would keep going. If anyone is to move with the city and Prague circuit, it is Adam Scheinherr.
There is a lot of talk about Deputy Scheinherr now, because he filed a criminal complaint against the group around former Deputy Mayor Petr Hlubuček (STAN). But he also remained on the supervisory board of the transport company with Hlubuček, who is accused today, and in the end, thanks to his vote, Matej Augustín, also accused today, got into the board of directors of the Prague carrier.
Adam Scheinherr really can’t be faulted. When he knew about the corruption regarding the railway station in Holešovice, he went to the police, widely deployed wiretapping and exposed the whole thing. He took care of the project at the railway station, commissioned two assessments there, it turned out much more advantageous for the city than planned. Those people are either in custody or going to court just because of him. If he had proceeded in a different way, nothing at all would have happened and Petr Hlubuček would have run for office again and become a representative again.
Those who point to colleague Scheinherr most often have butter on their heads. It mostly concerns the people from Spolu, who have Jiří Pospíšil there (Pospišil’s advisor at the time and now former TOP 09 member Jiří Fremr figures in the police wiretapping of the Dosimeter case – editor’s note) and other people. I really hope that the people of Prague will appreciate that the curtain has been lifted and for a moment it was possible to see who is who, and allow Prague to get rid of those people for good. When people choose us, the Pirates or the purified Starosts, it will be a use of the chance that the police gives us for Prague.
It bothers you together, but the Mayors who are most affected by the case, right?
STAN completely changed the candidate. People associated with Petr Hlubuček were sent away. If Spolu did the same, they probably wouldn’t have anyone left on the candidate list. But if they did, I speak completely differently.
Nobody left?
I think it will be resolved in the coming days and weeks, who all had contacts with people from the Dosimeter case.
Can you be more specific?
I think it will come out.
The ODS, in turn, connects you to the case called Dozimetr 2. They accuse you and the Pirates of being, with your votes, available to Petar Hlubuček in 2017 to sell land intended for the construction of a home for the elderly in Lysolajy, where Hlubuček was the mayor, below the price.
I am glad that Mrs. Marvanová (Hana Kordová Marvanová, candidate for ODS in municipal and senate elections – editor’s note) she drew attention to this case because the company that bought these plots sponsored STAN and TOP 09. So Mrs. Marvanová hung on billboards with the money of the company that bought the plots (Marvanová was elected in 2018 to the Prague council as a member of STAN, she left the movement this year – note Red.).
I blame you for the fact that Prague accepted a sponsorship gift of one million crowns from bpd partners, which also played a role in the sale of those plots. To put it simply, she sold a neighboring plot of land to the Dalavrien company, and thanks to that, this company got the aforementioned Lysolaj land, on which a home for the elderly was supposed to be located, without a tender process.
We accepted a donation from a company that ran away from there. She didn’t buy the land. On the contrary, she sold some of them. So I don’t know how Ms. Marvan intended this accusation, but it’s absurd. A private entity sold a plot of land to a private entity, and Mrs. Marvanová sees something in it.
Nevertheless, the Prague council, also thanks to your vote, made it possible for Petr Hlubuček to disadvantageously sell public land to a developer, on which he had previously promised to build a home for the elderly. Wasn’t that a mistake?
At that time, the city council only decided that the Lysolaj council could sell the land. I raised my hand for that. Only Lysolaje decided the price and everything else.
We all have almost the same program
Let’s talk more about coalitions. It follows from your statement that you exclude cooperation with Spolu and with the ANO movement?
I am surprised that we are the only ones who exclude the coalition with ANO.
Why now ANO excludes if you were part of the Triple Coalition during the time of Mayor Adriana Krnáčová (KDU-ČSL, Mayors, Greens)which ruled the municipality with the movement of Andrej Babiš?
Prague was created precisely so that we would not be dependent on the decisions of wider coalitions. Last time we said we wouldn’t go with ANO and we didn’t go. Now we say the same thing and we will do it too.
But what changed for you when you agreed with ANO to rule then and now you don’t?
It is unacceptable to rehabilitate Andrej Babiš, who is now on trial, by taking ANO as a standard player. It shocks me especially with Bohuslav Svoboda, who constantly repeats something about program penetration, but we all have almost the same program.
But why was it still acceptable for you to go with YES back then and not now?
I realized this already during the election period. That’s why we created Prague for ourselves, so that we could go together with the Pirates. Prague was also created in order to concentrate only on Prague and to end the era when national parties try to finance their activities through Prague.
Do you believe that you and the Pirates and STAN will be able to get the necessary majority in the elections? Surveys do not yet indicate this.
If, for example, Solidarity (coalition ČSSD and Greens, note Red.), so it is possible to negotiate a coalition with them. It is also possible to negotiate a coalition with Spolu. If voters cross out (by preferential votes – editor’s note) decent people, it is possible to talk to them about the coalition.
Jan Čižinský. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
So you appreciate the cooperation with the Pirates, but don’t you sometimes feel that Mayor Zdeněk Hřib “appropriates” the work of your deputies? Typically, when traffic is addressed, people tend to praise the mayor for it. Or, on the contrary, they blame him.
The mayor is the most visible figure and I would be sorry if people didn’t see how good a deputy Adam Scheinherr or Pavel Vyhnánek is. But we have really spent a lot of time on the street collecting signatures. We collected over 90,000 of them and I found out that people appreciate and know about people’s work.
You did not have time to collect a sufficient number of signatures to be able to go to the elections as a citizen candidate and not a political association. You missed a few thousand signatures. Where they went wrong?
We were collecting it, we should be the control term, but we wanted to avoid litigation because we were the target of two lawsuits last time, and that hearing in court was very tense. We decided to go with a compromise form, which is an association of independent candidates and a political party, to avoid the nerves of the court.
Wasn’t it rather out of fear that you wouldn’t be able to get those signatures anymore?
The speed with which we collected signatures last week led us to think that we would finish it. Legal certainty was more important to us.
Would you remain mayor of Prague 7 even if you became mayor?
We have a very good team at number seven and it will last if I were an unpaid mayor and devoted myself to the function of mayor. I don’t want to run away from the seven.
VIDEO: With the team we have at number seven, it is possible for me to be an unpaid mayor even as mayor, claims Čižinský
With the team we have at number seven, it is possible for me to be an unpaid mayor and devote myself fully to the position of mayor, claims the election leader Praha Sobě. | Video: Martin Veselovsky