Pirates in Prague 11 remain critics from their own ranks: “Self-reflection with a cross after a funus”
photo: Jakub Mračno, PrahaIN.cz/Despite the election loss, Mayor Jiří Dohnal (Pirates) has a chance to form a coalition.
The pirates did not succeed in Jižní Město, they did get into the council, but they defended only three of the original nine seats. The split of part of the pirate club in the course of 2021 as well as the newly lower number of representatives of the Prague 11 municipal council play a role in this. However, relatively sharp criticism can be heard from behind the scenes of the party. The self-reflection with which the serving mayor Jiří Dohnal got away with after the elections is said to come too late. Even so, thanks to the distribution of forces, there is still a chance that the Pirates will return to the leadership of the district.
“We thank everyone for their support not only in this election, but also in the previous period. Already when we jumped from zero to second place 4 years ago, we knew what a huge commitment this meant for us and that it would be very difficult to change the conditions in our beloved eleven with such a minority mandate.
The post-election negotiations already showed how difficult the situation would be when, with the winner of the election and our preferred partner, no one wanted to join the coalition after previous experience, and after the longest negotiations of all the city districts, we thus assumed the ungrateful role of the minority leader of the coalition.” they comment Piráti Praha 11 gave a little bit of an alibi on their Facebook, saying that the chosen path was the only chance to “fulfill our goals and commitments to the voters, it was clear that “we will be the target of criticism from all sides and everything bad will fall on us”.
while the defense of specific steps, in particular the removal of “criminally prosecuted persons from the management of the municipal district” and “the introduction of transparent management of municipal money”. “We started the repair of devastated metro stations and the construction of new parking garages, we ensured the construction of cycle paths and we ensured the summer operation of kindergartens,” the Pirates from Prague 11 boast in their post-election summary.
The covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine are among the complexities that complicated the work of the representatives of the Czech Pirate Party in the South Town. “Even with all that, we managed to fight with honor and let us once again thank everyone who helped us to provide help to those in need in both crises,” added the Pirates on the social network.
Congratulations to the traditional winners
They also officially congratulated the Movement for Prague 11, which won the elections in Prague 11 for the fourth time this year. We are ready to work either as a coalition partner, provided that the transparent and progressive functioning of the office is respected, or as a constructive opposition that will not only carefully check the work of others, but also support the reasonable steps of the town hall,” reads the conclusion of the comprehensive contribution.
But the situation of the Pirates is not rosy at all, and after four years of de facto permanent conflict, the breakup of a fragile coalition and the heated scenes that accompanied all public meetings of the council, it is impossible to rely on helpful steps from HPP11 with certainty. In addition to all this, the Pirates also face rather harsh criticism from their own ranks.
A self-reflection that should have come earlier
“We take the reduction of the mandate as a reason for self-reflection. We are carefully analyzing the mistakes that accompanied us in our first management of the municipal district,” states Jiří Dohnal on his mayoral profile, which he referred to the editorial staff of PrahaIN.cz after questions about the post-election situation. It is here that a specific criticism is heard. “That self-reflection comes with a cross after funus. The errors were known a long time ago,” comments Janek Wagner, who has been a member of the party since 2013, on Dohnal’s post. The pedagogue Marek Adler, who worked in Jižní Město at the Můj Projekt School and for a while was an assistant to the pirate councilor for education Vít Šimral, went even further. “Jirka, thanks for these words. Although from my point of view they come too late and I still don’t understand why you were not able to self-reflect during the election period,” he said to the outgoing mayor of Prague 11.
“At least you could have had some real results behind you, and above all, you could have shown direction. Thus, after four years, the district is in worse condition than before. Not only financially, but mainly in terms of political culture and citizen involvement. You hit him hard,” he doesn’t take the napkins.
Loss to splinters
Dohnal then adds to his contribution the explanation that the loss of the Pirates is not so dramatic, as it is calculated as the difference between the current gain of three mandates and the six mandates that the club had after the split of the three representatives, Michaela Al Ali Poláková, Ladislav Kos the younger and Michal Veselský, who they refused to sign the coalition agreement between Pirates, ODS, TOP 09 and STAN and the ANO movement. “As someone who was heavily involved in Pirates’ winning campaign in 2018, I see it a little differently, but let’s put that aside for now. I would like to read the analysis of the election result and the main positives and mistakes, which I hope all the Pirates from Prague 11 will receive from this leadership,” responded Al Ali Poláková.
There’s still a chance
It should be noted, however, that despite the Pirates’ modest success in Prague 11, their return to the management of the district is still in play. Inexorable electoral mathematics gives them a relatively decent chance in the current layout. Their representatives are most needed by the two strongest parties, i.e. both the winning Movement for Prague 11 with a significant gain of 11 seats, and the ANO movement, which won ten mandates in second place.