Naše Česko Party Bets on South Bohemia: Experts Don't Expect a Major Breakthrough in Local Elections

The Naše Česko (Our Czechia) movement, founded only at the turn of this year, is taking part in Czech municipal elections for the first time — and it is putting most of its resources into the South Bohemian Region. According to the Czech Statistical Office, the party has registered 42 of its own candidate lists, joined forces with independent candidates on another 35, and entered broader coalitions in nine cases.

The movement has fielded candidates in 11 of the country's 14 regions, but nearly half of all its independent lists — 25 out of 42 — are concentrated in South Bohemia alone. Meanwhile, no one is running under its banner at all in the Pilsen, Liberec or South Moravian regions.

A modest but not disastrous start

"Judging by the number of lists put forward, we're not talking about a major success, but it can't be called a disaster either — the movement is still able to field candidates outside South Bohemia. Overall, this is roughly what could have been expected," political scientist Lubomír Kopeček of Masaryk University told reporters.

Political scientist Ladislav Cabada of the University of West Bohemia holds a similar view: "There's hardly reason to expect big wins in municipal elections outside the South Bohemian Region, but any mayor or deputy mayor of a larger town would still stand out."

According to Kopeček, given that there are more than six thousand municipalities in Czechia and the movement is not even a year old, more could hardly have been expected of it.

Regional capitals and Prague

Naše Česko is competing for seats on city councils in five of the country's 13 regional capitals. The movement fielded its own list in Ostrava and České Budějovice. In Jihlava, Ústí nad Labem and Hradec Králové, the party teamed up with independent candidates or joined broader coalitions.

It is not contesting seats on Prague's city council at all — in the capital, it is only running in the municipal elections of Prague 18, Prague 19 and Prague 20.

Source: novinky.cz