Battle for Prague: Mayoral candidates clash over flats, parking and a possible alliance with ANO

Prague hosted televised debates between the candidates for the post of the capital's mayor — Zdeněk Portlík (ODS) and Jan Gušbauer (ANO) — in which the politicians argued not only about the future of the city coalition, but also about each other's property and parking policy.

Portlík had to explain the flats he owns through his own company but failed to list in his election asset declaration, which only included property registered in his own name as an individual. A similar story cost Ondřej Prokop (ANO) his career a few months ago — before the flats scandal broke, Prokop had been seen as a leading mayoral candidate. Portlík himself, however, rejects any comparison with Prokop.

"If the form had asked how much property I own altogether, I would have listed everything. This is all publicly available information," Portlík said, adding that he financed the purchase of the flats with money from selling his own company for 25 million crowns.

An ODS-ANO coalition in Prague?

The candidates also discussed the possibility of ODS and ANO jointly running Prague's city hall. Although such cooperation hasn't worked out between the two parties at the national level, Gušbauer didn't rule it out at the municipal one.

"National politics is quite different from municipal politics — at the local level, it's the people that matter most. I've been running Prague 4 for seven years now in a coalition with ODS and TOP 09, and everything there is built on relationships with people. That's something I'd like to bring to the level of Prague as a whole. I'm not saying it necessarily has to be ODS or TOP 09, but within a city hall coalition, I want to deliver a programme for the city," Gušbauer said.

Gušbauer has previously referred to Prague's ODS branch as "an appendage of the Pirate Party," hinting that the Pirates held onto the deputy mayor post for transport throughout the entire term. Portlík himself has also repeatedly criticised the Pirates' transport policy.

"That post was their non-negotiable condition, without which the coalition could never have been formed. And we're not an appendage — if the Pirates had implemented all their transport measures, Prague would have ground to a complete halt," Portlík countered, while also explaining his campaign slogan about "wanting to set the pace for Prague."

The current mayor, Bohuslav Svoboda (ODS), who has been criticised for passivity during his last term, also came under fire. "He gave Prague a sense of stability," Portlík said in defence of his party colleague. Gušbauer disagreed with that assessment, calling the current coalition "an absurdity."

A row over parking

Parking and blue zones were another hot topic in the debate. Gušbauer recently posted a video on social media showing him driving a large car around looking for a free parking spot and complaining about the shortage of spaces — even though the footage shows him driving past several empty spots without noticing them.

"That video was filmed on a weekend, in the afternoon. The biggest problem arises when residents come home from work," Gušbauer explained. On one point, the two candidates agreed: the price of resident parking permits should not be raised.

The debate also touched on safety in the capital and the question of investing the city's accumulated reserves — according to the debate, roughly 200 billion crowns sit in the city's coffers. These topics will be covered in more detail in separate articles later.

Source: novinky.cz