Time is running out, the stalemate in Prague continues. STAN suggests that he will “take” the mayor
photo: Vít Hassan for PrahaIN.cz/Petr Hlavácek
The stalemate in negotiations for the future ruling coalition in Prague, which has lasted for about a week, is still ongoing. The STAN movement now comes with support for unblocking the situation and letting Prague into the game. As another option, the movement proposes that he “take” the post of mayor. As the date of the constituent meeting of the Prague council approached, the ANO movement also became active, offering a variant of “silent support” for the minority leadership of the city.
It’s only been weeks since the leader of the movement in Prague, Patrik Na pár, when asked about the neck of the coalition negotiations on the government’s plan, which runs out of patience, with ANO follows the development of the situation. Even then, however, he called the negotiation of the date of the constituent meeting of the City Council of Prague a “deadline”. “I understand the pressures on the negotiating teams regarding the coalition on the government plan, but everything has its limits, and that limit is in this negotiation the date of the first council,” he told PrahaIN.cz.
Patrik Nacher offered the TOGETHER coalition tacit support for the ANO movement. Photo: Jakub Mračno, PrahaIN.cz
He spoke about this Thursday, when, according to the law, the new councilors should take their oath and, ideally, the new councilors should also agree on the election of the mayor, his deputies, councilors and, for example, the chairmen of the council’s key committees.
TOGETHER and STAND in unison
But whether this will happen is in the stars. At least when looking at how blocked the negotiations are between the individual entities that use to rule over Prague. The core of the coalition should be the victorious SPOLU (the election coalition of the ODS, TOP 09 and KDU-ČSL) and the STAN movement, which has already passed several bilateral meetings, which received positive reviews from both sides.
Alliance for Stability
According to the aforementioned pair, the third element of the future coalition in the council should be the Pirates. However, they closed the Alliance for themselves as part of pushing for the stability of the Prague game. “The alliance acts as a bloc of two entities, and it will remain so,” responded acting mayor Zdeněk Hřib to the editor’s question as to whether he would end the “alliance” and conclude a coalition agreement on the government’s plan.
Zdeněk Hřib insists on negotiating a coalition with the participation of Prague itself. Photo: Jakub Mračno, PrahaIN.cz
Since then, he has repeated that without Prague he will not be able to agree on anything with potential partners and reminded that the Alliance for Stability has the same number of mandates in the new parliament as the SPLU and STAN movement.
“The alliance did not speed anything up, on the contrary,“ says YES
And that is what has now come with the other additional parts of unblocking the coalition talks. At the same time, it was mainly a response to the weekend request of the ANO movement, which offered temporary support to the minority group led by the victorious TOGETHER. “Although the alliance declared that its goal was to speed up the coalition negotiations, the opposite happened, as I expected,” Nacher said in his call and also noted that the current stalemate may suit the Pirates and Prague itself, because in the event of not electing a new councils continue the function of the existing city council consisting of the two aforementioned entities and the STAN movement. This is precisely what its leader Petr Hlaváček has been criticizing for a long time about the participation of the ANO movement in the city management. Even before the elections, he is labeled as an undemocratic entity, with whom he does not intend to negotiate after the elections. And today I encourage the coalition partners to do the same.
Mainly without YES, encourage STAN
“YES offered silent support for Prague during the TOGETHER weekend. If SOLE were to accept this offer, it would be a failure of all democratic parties and a failure to listen to the will of the voters. However deadlocked the situation may seem, there is still a chance to come to an agreement. Let us be responsible above all to Prague and its citizens,” Hlaváček said in a statement to the media.
“All it takes is common sense, a few concessions on all sides, and we have a stable council made up of democratic parties. We had no ambition to conduct negotiations, we did not set conditions, but at this moment I feel obliged to propose such a procedure so that no one in Prague “negotiates” TOGETHER with ANO and the hidden support of the SPD,” he added, supplementing his statement with two possible schemes for the distribution of forces in the leadership of Prague.
Two councilors or the mayor for STAN
According to today’s statement, STAN offers either a variant for negotiations, where it will have a TOTAL of 5 councilors including the mayor, the Alliance for Stability will occupy 4 councilor seats, and STAN will have two posts left in the city council. But it also offers another option, which, according to information from PrahaIN.cz, aroused rather negative reactions from those around the negotiating team.
“In order to exhaust all possibilities, a compromise path could still be the option that the position of mayor would be held by a third, “neutral” party. I realize that STAN is not the winner of the elections and has the fewest mandates among potential partners. If this would be a way to unblock the situation, it is worth considering in our opinion,” announced deputy Hlaváček, adding that the distribution of posts in the council would then be as follows: A TOTAL of 6 seats in the council, the Alliance for Stability 4 seats and the STAN movement post the mayor.
TOGETHER no reaction yet
From the ranks of the “alliance” there are positive responses towards Hlaváček, who “understood that the Pirates and Prague are acting together in the post-election negotiations”.
“We welcome the initiative of the STAN movement, which offers the TOGETHER coalition to repeatedly sit at the negotiating table with the Stability Alliance. We want to openly discuss all offers so that a proportionally balanced and stable Council of the Capital City of Prague is created for the entire four-year term of office. It is not possible to extend the negotiations on the Prague coalition without relevant reasons. Further delays would cause a disaster especially for Prague’s city districts, which would not be able to use the funds for their key investment projects,” the Stability Alliance responds through a media response.
Unfortunately, despite several offered dates for negotiations, the Alliance of Stability has not received any answers from SPOLU to date.
“We perceive the ANO movement’s offer to support the minority councils of the capital city of Prague as complete
alarming. This would lead to the legitimization of non-democratic parties at one of the highest levels in our country, and thus also the entrustment of the presidential ambitions of the defendant Andrej Babiš. At the same time, the offer to create a broad democratic coalition that will be strong even in this difficult time is on the table. Therefore, legitimizing the presidential candidacy of Andrej Babiš in this way makes no sense at all,” concludes Alince in a statement under which Zdeněk Hřib and Jana Komrsková are signed for Pirates and Jan Čižinský and Hana Třeštíková for Prague.
However, the TOGETHER coalition will most likely comment on STAN’s call after the club’s evening meeting. This is to be held from 6:00 p.m. We will inform you about the possible reaction of the negotiating team to Petr Hlaváček’s proposal.