The situation in Prague resembles a flood. The city eats up two Blanka tunnels every year, criticizes Bém
“Every decision that I see today brings more and more damage. And the people who negotiate and sit on the benches, for God’s sake, they have to expect it,”.
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According to Bém, the main winemaker is Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirate Party), who he says does not want to leave office. “He didn’t win the election, but he’s still mayor and he seems to like it. The second reason is that everyone talks to everyone and no one talks seriously to anyone,” he judges.
According to him, Hřib is trying to obstruct negotiations that would lead to at least a somewhat stable city council, and he is unable to admit defeat. “Animosity is something completely normal in politics. We see this even in a relatively functional government, it cannot be an argument. People are supposed to go into politics to come to an agreement, and I don’t see this ability.”
For three election periods, no major decisions were made, nothing was built. At the same time, the city’s budget is 100 billion, for me it was half that.
Pavel Bem
“As an eight-year-old mayor, I cannot imagine that I would allow such a situation. I already said before the elections that I perceive the situation in Prague as catastrophic. For three election periods, no major decisions were made, nothing was built. At the same time, the city’s budget is 100 billion, that’s unbelievable, it was half for me,” he said.
Patrik Nacher is one of the pragmatic politicians who can argue and maybe even want to.
Pavel Bem
He dwells on the fact that the city’s budget is 100 billion today, while under his leadership it was half as much, but there was still money for investments. “The current expenses, i.e. what the city eats with the forgiveness, was 29 billion. Today it is 80. Today, the city eats two Blanka tunnels every year just because of economic and political irresponsibility,” Bém claims.
“The situation resembles a flood. I took up the mayoral seat in 2002, a few months after the catastrophic floods. I feel the situation is exactly the same today. It is necessary to quickly create a stable government that will govern and make decisions,” he adds.
Pragmatic Nacher
According to Bém, the negotiations are also complicated by the fact that some of the parties of the Spolu coalition are part of the existing municipal coalition. “They get various tempting offers from the other side and they can’t choose. They are like a princess waiting for a wife and the one who will be richer. Even that is a grandiose irresponsibility,” to ensure.
I myself would now try to negotiate a broader coalition with the YES movement.
Pavel Bem
If the ODS had negotiated the coalition independently, it could have already been done. At the same time, Bém appreciates Patrik Nacher from the ANO movement, which has the most representatives of all parties. “They belong to pragmatic politicians who can negotiate and maybe even want to,” he assesses, adding that the ODS is programmatically closer to ANO than to the Pirate Party or the Prague Movement.
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According to Bém, cooperation should not be hindered even by the fact that both entities defined themselves before the elections: “As a former politician, I see it as part of a pre-election strategy to impress voters. I never took it too seriously. But it plays a role and the negotiators are torn in half.”
On the contrary, he would like a vision of the city’s development and a commitment that can be checked after four years on pre-election billboards. He himself would now try to negotiate a wider coalition with the YES movement:
“After the floods, I was left with a broad coalition of the ODS and ČSSD, for which I was criticized, but in the end it turned out that it was the only possible wise solution that avoided senseless lamentation instead of normal and responsible political work,” he concludes.
Listen to the full interview on Interview Plus.