Czech opposition with respectable success in Senate election

Political mood test

Czech opposition with respectable success in Senate election

The ruling right-wing populists won the local elections, but the opposition achieved a surprising partial success in the Senate election. What this means for the political balance.

In the Senate election in Czech Republic The liberal and conservative opposition achieved a surprising, respectable success: five of their candidates won an absolute majority in the first round of voting. This emerges from the partial results after counting more than 90 percent of the electoral districts. The remaining vacant mandates will only be decided in runoff elections next week. The right-wing populist party ANO of the head of government and billionaire Andrej Babis is sending most of the candidates into this second round.

It is already clear that the opposition can maintain its majority in the Senate. The chamber thus continues to form a counterweight to the House of Representatives, which is dominated by the right-wing government parties. As every two years, only a third of the 81 seats in the Senate, the upper house of Parliament, were up for election. The Senate can delay legislative changes and prevent constitutional changes. Political scientists therefore also call it a “democratic reinsurance”.

In the local elections, which also ended on Saturday, Prime Minister Babi’s ANO party was almost able to repeat its success four years ago. After counting 85 percent of the electoral districts, it received around 13 percent of the votes (2022: 16.60 percent). “These elections have confirmed that the ANO movement is the strongest political force in the country, de facto at all levels except the Senate,” Babis said. At the same time, he accused the media of spreading untruths about things like the second-highest new debt in the country’s history.

However, most of the mandates in the city and local councils went to independent candidates. Among the opposition parties, the Mayor’s Party STAN, the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and the Citizens Democrats (ODS) performed best.

Prague After the partial result, confirmed its reputation as a liberal stronghold of the opposition. In the beer town of Pilsen (Plzen) and the industrial Ostrava, the ANO clearly won. The full results are not expected to be available until Sunday.

Both votes were seen as the first test of sentiment for the government under billionaire Babis since it took office in December. His ANO party governs together with two small parties on the far right, the Motorists party and the Freedom and Direct Democracy group (SPD).

Organizations like Transparency International repeatedly complain that Babis, as head of government and founder of a huge network of companies, is in a constant conflict of interest. The cabinet’s plan to finance public broadcasting directly from the state budget instead of through broadcasting fees has also recently met with criticism.