ANO will support Svoboda in the election for mayor of Prague, the Pirates will not
Update: 14/12/2022 20:11
Issued by: 14/12/2022, 20:07
Prague – The ANO movement will support the election of Bohuslav Svoboda as mayor of Prague at Thursday’s meeting of representatives. Lídr Spolu (ODS, TOP 09 and KDU-ČSL) should replace Zdenek Hřiba (Pirates) in the position. Svoboda is supposed to have the authority of the mayor, but he will not be a member of the serving council. He will only sit in the new council, when the remaining ten new councilors will be allowed. On the other hand, the Pirates will not support the election of Svoboda as mayor, who have called the procedure announced by Spolu and ANO a legal blunder and will want the Ministry of the Interior to comment on it. The minority council Spolu offered support YES, representatives will not vote on Thursday. The parties will continue to discuss the agenda items presented by ANO. Representatives of the parties told journalists today. Spolu won the elections in Prague ahead of ANO and Pirates.
“Given that the meeting started on Sunday, that time was not enough. We have agreed for the moment that we are winning the elections, we will support the election of associate professor Svoboda as mayor,” said MP and ANO leader Patrik Nacher.
“We are ready to actually propose Bohuslav Svoboda as a candidate for mayor, we are ready to give the full number of votes in this direction, we welcome that it is ANO that is ready to support Svoboda as a leader Together. We take it as the next step, when we set up council committees, and we are waiting, that it should be followed by the permission of the whole council,” added the chairman of the Spolu deputies Zdeněk Zajíček (ODS).
The election of Svoboda as mayor should be the first point of Thursday’s meeting of Prague representatives. Together, ANO has a narrow majority of 33 votes in the 65-member council. If Svoboda becomes mayor, he will have his legal powers, but he will not be a member of the council, which will remain in its current composition, with the difference that Hřib will no longer hold the position of mayor. The serving council will cease to exist only when all 11 members of the council have been elected.
Together, they initially negotiated a possible coalition on the ground plan of the government one, i.e. with the Pirates and STAN, but the negotiations ended unsuccessfully last week. Spolu then began negotiating with ANO about a minority temporary council composed of Spolu representatives. ANO presented 15 program points that it supports. The parties are now negotiating about them. “We will not allow the advice itself at this time. Given that we were not 100 percent capable enough at some moments, it is fairer for us to do it this way,” said Nacher.
According to the chairman of representatives of Spolu Zdeňko Zajíček (ODS), the parties differ, for example, in the way of solving some problems in transport or the insufficient capacity of secondary schools.
From today’s decision, the parties promise to buy time to agree on a majority coalition. At the same time, the representatives of both parties admitted the possibility of discussing it among themselves. However, Svoboda and Zajíček reiterated that Together is still promoting the formation of a coalition on the government’s blueprint. “We will discuss the government version, but we will also seek support from other representative clubs,” said Zajíček. Nacher said that YES he respects that. “I dare to say that with this (Solu and ANO negotiations) the possibilities of how to form a majority coalition have expanded,” he said.
The representative and negotiator of the Pirates, Jana Komrsková, stated in a press release sent to ČTK this evening that the Pirates will not support the aforementioned procedure. At the same time, she described it as a legislative blunder and a negotiation debacle together. “The magistrate will contact the Ministry of the Interior as a superior authority for a legal interpretation of this scenario. In our opinion, by not agreeing on minority councils, they are only looking for loopholes and loopholes in the laws. Unfortunately, we already know this very well in the Czech Republic from the serving president,” said Komrsková.
Coalition negotiations began immediately after the elections. Since then, representatives of the individual parties have been meeting continuously. Together, they advocated the formation of a coalition period, such as the government one, i.e. with the Pirates and STAN, but the negotiations ended unsuccessfully. This year’s negotiations on the new city leadership are the longest in the history of Prague since 1993.
The Spolu coalition won the municipal elections in Prague this year, winning 19 mandates in the 65-member council. ANO ended second with 14 mandates. The third Pirates have 13 representatives and Praha Sobě 11 mandates. Five representatives belong to STAN, the sixth SPD won three mandates.