2024-09-21 14:16:03
The populist ANO of former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, allied with the FPÖ, has achieved a clear victory in the Czech regional elections. As partial results published on Saturday afternoon showed, the former governing party was clearly in the lead in eleven of 13 constituencies. However, the largest opposition party will probably have a hard time finding the coalition partners required to fill the district governors’ positions in many regions.
After around half of the votes had been counted, the liberal-conservative five-party coalition of Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s election result was sobering. It can only expect victory in two districts – South Bohemia and South Moravia. In the partial Senate elections taking place at the same time, the decision was apparently only made in one Prague constituency because a candidate there received the required absolute majority of votes. In the other constituencies, no candidate apparently managed to do this, so there will be a run-off election in a week between the two best-placed candidates. The regional authorities and a third of the 81 seats in the second parliamentary chamber (Senate) were newly filled in the ballot box on Friday and Saturday.
The elections were seen as an important nationwide mood test before the parliamentary elections, which must take place in autumn 2025 at the latest. Polls had predicted a victory for the protest movement ANO. It had already come out on top in the European elections in May. As a result, it allied itself with the FPÖ and the national conservative Hungarian governing party Fidesz to form a new right-wing populist alliance. Their alliance “Patriots for Europe” is the third largest group in the EU parliament.
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