ANO loses votes in Czech municipal elections in big cities

Andrej Babiš’s ANO movement has clearly weakened in the municipal elections in Czechia’s big cities. With 96.8% of polling stations counted, it is on 13.45% of the vote nationwide, compared with 16.60% four years ago — a drop of 3.15 percentage points. So far 1,213 ANO candidates have won seats, against 1,564 in 2022.

The losses are most visible where the movement often led city halls after the last elections. The heaviest defeat came in Ústí nad Labem, which the city ran together with SPD and Trikolora: according to preliminary results, the broad “Jedno Ústí” list is winning more than half of the vote, while ANO has around 16%. “It did not surprise me,” Babiš said at an evening press conference, adding that he had been dissatisfied with the outgoing mayor, Petr Nedvědický.

Wins and losses in the cities

In České Budějovice, ANO, with a result of around 16%, finished behind the new “Our Czechia” movement of regional governor Martin Kuba and the “Citizens for Budějovice” list. Kuba merged some former local ODS politicians into a new group and received almost 30% of the vote.

ANO does have a few wins — in Ostrava, Plzeň, Pardubice, Olomouc and Zlín. But even where the movement remained the strongest, its result worsened: in Ostrava it took about 27%, against 34% in 2022. Notable growth came only in Plzeň (+4.83 points, to 32.09%) and Opava (+2.27 points, to 37.25%). The biggest losses: Ústí nad Labem, down 12.57 points (to 15.96%), Chomutov, down 10.15 (to 19.59%), and Zlín, down 9.06 (to 22.91%). In Prague, ANO is on 15.43% (previously 19.33%), and in Brno on 18.18% (previously 20.46%).

SPD disappears from the big cities

Things are even worse for SPD, ANO’s partner in the governing coalition. After the 2022 elections it had councillors in every regional capital; this time it failed to repeat that, losing representation in Prague, Brno and Ostrava, where the fall from almost 12% to 4.6% was especially harsh. Tomio Okamura’s movement also failed to make it in Liberec, České Budějovice and Hradec Králové.

Across the country, the share of independent candidates and local associations is growing: according to preliminary data, from 12.87% in 2022 to about 16.14%.

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Source: novinky.cz