Hřib ruled responsibly, TOGETHER’s offer was unfair. An opposition agreement is being created in Prague, says Hlaváček
Prague will probably have a new mayor and city management tomorrow, the council will elect a minority council of the TOGETHER coalition with the support of ANO. The cooperation between SPOLU, Pirates and STAN went bankrupt because of SPOLU’s unfair demands for council posts, Petr Hlaváček says in an interview for the leader of Reflex STAN. According to him, the new city management will be unstable, and Prague needs to advance large and demanding projects. Hlaváček, who these days is serving as the name for territorial development, also evaluates Zdenek Hřiba in the role of mayor and rejects that Hřib is arrogant: “That’s a very simplified story,” he adds.
A week ago, the TOGETHER coalition announced that they would end negotiations with you and the Pirates and start negotiating minority councils. What was the meeting like for you?
I was sick, my colleagues Katka Arnotová, Honza Lacina, Tonda Klecanda and Pavel Dobeš stood in for me. However, the meeting was a follow-up to the previous meeting I was at. We expected a shift in negotiating numbers for council representation. He is going to resign, I know that at the last meeting TOGETHER said at the very beginning that out of the number of 6 councilors he did not and the debate was not very long. Furthermore, there was a discussion about the new position of deputy for investments, which is not completely clarified. However, colleagues from SPOLU did not say at the meeting that they would start negotiating a minority council with ANO. This was only heard in the press and I must say that I was surprised.
Is there still a chance to build a coalition on the government’s blueprint?
I defined at that previous meeting the only thing in which I see a dispute, and that is a fair share in the council. The mandates are 19 TOGETHER, 18 for the Pirates and STAN, but the percentages in the elections were more for the Pirates and STAN than TOGETHER. So the positions are pretty much the same. From the beginning, the theme was that SPOLU still wants to have a majority in the council and the mayor. This is how the matrix is set up.
Why did the negotiations get stuck at this point?
Unfortunately, at the same time, one more number comes out with colleagues from SPOLU, and that is 33, which is the majority they have with the YES movement. This is a very fragile number in my opinion and I don’t think it would lead to a stable board. Of course, there are still 3 SPD votes in reserve, but I don’t think my colleagues would want to rely on them.
Is a new opposition agreement emerging in Prague?
That term is closely associated with the then union of the ODS and the ČSSD. Perhaps some Austro-Hungarian term could be used as a pragmatic sanction. Anyway, this is a pragmatic union of ideological opponents. I think that Patrik Nacher is not right when he says that it is not an opposition contract. Both sides waged an implacable battle against each other in the campaign. I’m probably looking forward to asking Patrik Nacher who is lying about TOGETHER, as it was written YES on the billboards. Either way, it won’t have a positive impact on the city, TOGETHER it will bear quite a large political burden, which will lead to instability.
The final offer of SPOLU for the coalition was 6 councilors including the mayor for SPOLU, 4 Pirates, 1 STAN. Why did you think she was unfair?
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