Babiš unhappy with Czech election results: who is shaky in ANO

Andrej Babiš is unhappy with how ANO's leaders performed in the municipal elections in a number of cities. According to the head of the movement, some candidates did not try hard enough and relied only on a well-known brand. In an interview with the iDnes.cz portal, he promised steps that, in his words, he has wanted to take for a long time.

“Some in the movement think that because they have our brand, they will win any election and don't have to do anything for it. Now it has turned out that they won't. And we have to say it bluntly,” Babiš said. Those who do not start making an effort and “taking care of people” have no business in the movement, he said. He wants his politicians to campaign permanently and bring new faces into the movement.

Where ANO lost the most

Babiš did not name specific leaders, but the election results make it clear whom his criticism is aimed at. ANO suffered a hard fall above all in Ústí nad Labem; voters also knocked the movement off first place in Hradec Králové and Jihlava. The results in Prague and Brno are a disaster. And in Zlín and Ostrava, for example, ANO won, but lost noticeably compared with the previous election.

ANO leaders in regional capitals admit that the reasons for the failures need to be analysed, but deny any lack of effort. “We worked our socks off. I can show the leadership all the activities we ran: social media, the streets, everything at high intensity,” says the leader in České Budějovice, Viktor Lavička. “We did everything here to defend the win,” echoes Radek Popelka, the leader in Jihlava, where the movement lost first place. Zlín's leader and mayor Jiří Korec says he launched the city's biggest development since the revolution: “Unfortunately, because of legislation, the projects only started at the end of the term, so people believed the disinformation that they were just visualisations.”

Some see the cause in rivals that were too strong, others in having less money for the campaign than the competition, and still others in the possibility that being a governing party hurt the movement. “Of course, running for a governing movement is a certain handicap. That played a role too, but I don't want to use it as an excuse,” says ANO's leader in Ostrava, Richard Vereš, where the movement got 26% compared with almost 34% last time.

Babiš disagrees with that explanation: “If it were true that people held it against the government in the elections, it would apply across the board, but we have cities with brilliant results. We won in Plzeň for the first time, we strengthened in Opava, and there are more such cities. So the work and activity of those people shows there.”

Ústí and Ostrava: the previous mayor to blame

One reason for the failures that leaders cite is problems in the previous term. In Ústí nad Labem in 2022, ANO won convincingly with more than 28%. Four years later the movement fell to 16%: instead of 13 councillors it will have only six in the city council. ANO was beaten by a broad coalition, “Jedno Ústí” (One Ústí), which won more than half of the seats. “In Ústí nad Labem we have to reflect. It is no longer about us automatically winning,” Babiš said at the post-election press conference. He immediately added that he had long been dissatisfied with the city's longtime ANO mayor, Petr Nedvědický.

Nedvědický did not defend the post this year, but he did get onto the council. The movement tried to save the situation in Ústí with a new leader, Tomáš Hrubý, the general manager of the local basketball club, but changing the leader was not enough. Hrubý said that Babiš is certainly not criticising him personally, because he did all he could in recent months. It is clear that Babiš is aiming at Nedvědický, who did not answer calls or text messages.

The blame is placed on the previous mayor in Ostrava as well: ANO lost control of the city in the middle of the term, after disagreements with chairman Babiš drove out a prominent figure, Tomáš Macura. The mayor's post went to ODS, which improved markedly this year under the srdcOVA brand. “It's natural, because we did not have a mayor who used the media weight and the office to promote the srdcOVA coalition, which was reflected in their result,” explains Vereš. He says he has already spoken with Babiš about the situation in Ostrava and they have cleared everything up.

“Our rivals are too strong” and lack of money

České Budějovice leader Lavička points to a very strong regional rival, Martin Kuba, and his new project “Naše Česko” (Our Czechia). “Four years ago Kuba was not yet such a hegemon as he is today. And our result was also affected by the rise of the STAN movement across the country,” he believes. In his view the causes of ANO's failure in South Bohemia are more complicated, “but I understand the criticism; at first glance it can be called a flop.”

In other cities they cautiously point out that the local branches are in disarray after interference from above. One example is Liberec, where ANO's executive board dissolved the branch last year over alleged disagreements among its members. Some members then left and founded the project “Lepší Liberec” (Better Liberec). It won 11 seats this year and overtook ANO. Candidate Adam Lenert admits that the branch failed to find a strong personality who could attract preference votes. While Lepší Liberec will join the new coalition, ANO will be the only one left in opposition.

The situation is similar in Brno, where ANO has been struggling with personnel problems since 2020. That year the movement dissolved several local organisations over the Stoka affair. It did not end there. Last year ANO expelled around ten Brno councillors and prominent figures because they did not leave the coalition with ODS after the bitcoin affair broke out. This year the list was led by MP Václav Trojan: “The criticism is certainly not aimed at me. Since I've been here, I've been working on it from the start.” Asked why the campaign did not work, he said only: “If I knew, I would have run it differently.”

Several leaders also complained of smaller budgets. Lenert said that “Starostové pro Liberecký kraj” (Mayors for the Liberec Region) had large funds. Popelka in Jihlava claims that the winning “Tým pro Jihlavu” (Team for Jihlava) had an essentially unlimited budget and its advertising “was everywhere for months”: “Our budgets are in real numbers. We used money that we control strictly. Everything goes through invoices, accounts, orders.”

Prague: a special case

In Hradec Králové ANO lost first place and three seats, and was beaten by the “Hradecký klub zastupitelů” (Hradec Councillors' Club). Local ANO wants to evaluate the results first. “Personally, I think the campaign was run well and it worked for us. Yes, we didn't win the election, but compared with the other regional capitals, our drop was not as sharp as elsewhere,” believes the list's leader Lukáš Fiedler, who is not afraid of Babiš's reaction.

ANO also took a beating in Prague under leader Jan Hušbauer: the movement finished only fourth and will almost certainly return to opposition. Babiš called it a total defeat and a big disappointment. But Hušbauer is one of the few who need not fear the criticism: the ANO chief likes him and sees him as a future hope. “Honza Hušbauer was a good candidate; I think he has prospects for the future too,” Babiš said after the elections.

The culprits of the defeat in the capital will therefore have to be sought elsewhere. Ondřej Prokop would be an obvious candidate, who was originally supposed to run for mayor but resigned from all posts after reports about his flats. At the same time, it may be somewhat unfair to blame specific party members for failures in the capital: for a rather left-leaning movement it is a tough electoral obstacle. Babiš has tried repeatedly to improve the result in Prague, without success. Two years ago, for example, he tasked MP Robert Králíček with “watching over Prague”, who set himself the goal of lifting support in the capital to at least 25%. Before the last parliamentary elections Babiš installed Karel Havlíček here as leader, but even he did not manage to improve the results substantially.

Read also: Brno: what to see and where to go

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz