Prague may see a new coalition after four months. Freedom retreated
The new form of the coalition should look like this: five seats including the mayor for the Spolu coalition, four for the Pirates and two for Mayors and independents. This is what the offer from the candidate for the new mayor Bohuslav Svoboda (ODS) looks like.
“In order for the government to give up the formation of the coalition to us, we are mostly in the council, the position of the investment square, and we offered our coalition partners the gestures that we ourselves wanted,” said Svoboda. “We want to go to the municipality not because we want the leadership to lose its position, but so that the city leadership will finally start functioning and the council will no longer rule without the mandate of the voters,” added the spokesperson.
The mayors welcomed the offers. “This distribution of power, as fair to everyone, corresponds to the balance of power in the council, and we proposed it from the beginning as a variant for the coalition on the government plan,” said Petr Hlaváček for STAN, who should once again be in charge of territorial development. Mayors should also get a councilor for education and sports. “We did a lot of work today. We feel that we are on the right track. We have work teams in five areas and another joint meeting on Monday evening,” added Hlaváček.
Pirates should get lucrative transport, property, environment and IT responsibilities. In addition to the position of mayor, the Troikaalice Spolu will also share the position of councilor for external relations and security, councilor for finance, councilor for housing, social affairs and health, councilor for infrastructure and city services and councilor for culture.
“We appreciate the offer sent by Spolu, which, four months after the election, finally represents a move in the right direction. However, a detailed discussion on the details of the proposal will be necessary,” said outgoing mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates). “For example, in the case of their intention to establish the position of councilor for city services and infrastructure, it is not entirely clear to us if this is not some variation on the originally proposed investment governor, which the Pirates and STAN unequivocally rejected already in December,” added Hřib, who is annoyed that the offer does not take into account his request to invite Prague to the coalition.
After a heated debate at the end of last year, Prague’s politicians adopted a more conciliatory tone for the first time. Even before Christmas, Svoboda unsuccessfully tried to unseat Hřiba with the help of representatives from the ANO movement. That’s when people started talking about the fact that after all, Svoboda would try to form a coalition with the ANO movement. However, the national leadership of the five parties that are together in the government does not like such a constellation. Although the governing party cooperates with ANO in practically all large cities in the republic, it is apparently too visible in the metropolis.
Prague’s ANO dislikes the change in behavior. Representative Ondřej Prokop concluded that one of the gestures – culture – was tailored to MEP Jiří Pospíšil (TOP 09). “Last summer, the pirates wanted Jiří Pospíšil from SPOL to leave all positions because, according to them, he is involved in the biggest corruption case in Prague, Dozimetr, and is friends with the mobster Redl, with whom he goes on vacation,” said Prokop. “Today, Pospíšil doesn’t mind the Pirates and they will probably join him in the Prague City Council,” criticizes Hřiba Prokop. However, the politicians have not yet spoken publicly about the staffing of individual positions.