Another dispute in the upcoming coalition in Prague. Svoboda accuses Mayor Hřib of “extremely inappropriate actions of the outgoing council”
photo: Jakub Mračno, PrahaIN.cz/Leader of the Together for Prague coalition, Associate Professor Bohuslav Svoboda at a press conference.
Another drop in the imaginary cup of patience is the mutual negotiations between SPOLU and the Pirates about a possible coalition in the City Council of Prague. Políček, in the form of an open letter criticizing the current outgoing leadership of Prague, addressed the leaders together with Bohuslav Svoboda to outgoing mayor Zdenek Hřib.
“Dear Mr. Mayor, one of the basic principles of decent governance has always been that the serving Council of the Capital City of Prague did not make any major decisions that could have an effect, in particular, on the disposition of the property of the Capital City of Prague, on the impact on the city budget, or by which it would oblige the city to investments through which it would influence the strategic direction of the city,” writes the ODS mayoral candidate in an open letter to Hřib.
Only the essentials
The standard, according to his continuation, “has always been to undertake only such actions that are not related to the postponement and extension of non-implementation by the fact that it could cause damage to the capital or other serious consequences.”
Bohuslav Svoboda. Photo: PrahaIN.cz
At the same time, Svoboda’s main argument is that “at this moment, the current city leadership is not in the council, and some members of the council do not even have the mandate of a representative. “As an executive collective body, at the moment you do not have the trust of the citizens of Prague to be able to adopt fundamental resolutions. By doing so, you are ignoring the will of the Prague voters as expressed by the election results,” Svoboda claims in the mentioned letter, which was also received by the media.
Extremely inappropriate steps
According to the letter, the mayoral candidate SPOLU considers it “extremely inappropriate that the serving councilor Mrjust after the elections, they ruled on the decision to start project work for the implementation and revitalization of the Dejvice campus or approved the development of a memorandum with Prague 5 on the Jinonice location.
“What is particularly incredible, and with which I fundamentally disagree as a doctor, is the fact that he allows Councilor Milena John, who at this moment is completely without a mandate from the voters, to allow the office to approve materials by the council that can negatively and fundamentally affect social care in capital city. Her wrongly set transformation of facilities outside of Prague for the disabled caused a great deal of controversy even in professional circles. Among the materials that belong to the voting up to the new Prague series are also approval steps for the modernization of care for children with disabilities or perhaps a draft of the Methodology for assessing buildings for residential senior social services,” complains Bohuslav Svoboda.
According to him, there is no legitimate reason why this resolution has to be approved by this council.
ODS prevents obscurantist approaches
Milena Johnová herself, the outgoing councilor for the area of social policy, sharply objected to the criticism.
“In recent days, they have approved the completion of the transformation of social services, which we have only been realistically for at least two years. The fact that the opposition ODS is still a thorn in the side is another question,” said PrahaIN.cz in response to Bohuslav Svoboda’s open letter.
Milena John. Photo: PrahaIN.cz
She is behind the transformation she started.
“After years, we have finally reached a state where the level of social services corresponds to today. In this regard, the ODS opposes obscurantist approaches, it would prefer not to change anything,” she added, adding that the transformation was created together with experts and is also supported by laws.
Hřiba also “strongly demands” that the outgoing council stop making major decisions that affect the running of the city, and that the coalition elected to the bodies of city companies and city-run organizations stop taking strategic steps that affect their functioning. “I appeal to your and others’ political decency,” added Svoboda in the letter, stating that the newly elected city council should decide on the possible continuation of ongoing projects and investments.
Everything is as it should be, responds Hřib
“The law is clear. The city council is responsible for the management of the city until a new council is elected,” the acting mayor Zdeněk Hřib responded rather bluntly to PrahaIN.cz in response to Bohuslav Svoboda’s letter.
Zdenek Hrib. Photo: PrahaIN.cz
According to his statement, which our editors received in writing, the statement that the current coalition does not have a majority in the parliament is not true. “The percentages for the pirates were better than in 2018. The numbers of representatives also speak clearly. In the 2018 elections, the Pirates won 13, Prague itself 13, TOP09 8, STAN 3, KDU-ČSL 1, Hana Kordová Marvanová 1, so the current coalition has a total of 39 representatives,” calculated the acting mayor.
We have the same mandates
According to Hřiba, the result is suitable compared to the previous elections. In this year’s council elections, the Pirates again won 13 seats, Prague itself 11, TOP09 7, STAN 5, KDU-ČSL 2, and Hana Kordová Marvanová was also elected, which is again one vote, now she won again for another political entity.
“On the contrary, the ODS now has 9 representatives instead of 13 in 2018,” Hřib only grumbled.
According to him, the main difference compared to the 2018 elections is that “TOP09 is now part of a different pre-election coalition than in the United Forces for Prague in 2018, when its candidates were part of a coalition with the STAN movement and the KDU-ČSL”.
“We plan to continue the constructive TOGETHER on program intersections and key topics that are troubling Prague right next week at one of the next meetings, the date of which we are now agreeing on,” added Hřib.