Kupka criticises Plzeň billboard of ODS senator with ANO candidate

ODS chairman Martin Kupka called a billboard in Plzeň unacceptable, in which outgoing ODS senator Lumír Aschenbrenner stands next to ANO candidate Lucie Kantorová. In the second round of the Senate election in the Plzeň-město district, she will face former chief of the general staff Karel Řehka, nominated by the STAN movement, on Friday and Saturday.

What the billboard shows

Longtime senator Aschenbrenner failed to defend his seat: he finished behind Kantorová and Řehka in the first round and will leave the Senate after 12 years. After the votes were counted, he said no one should expect him to support Řehka in the second round. “Plzeň should be represented by someone from Plzeň,” he said.

The billboard that appeared in Plzeň shows Kantorová and Aschenbrenner side by side. According to the senator, the photo was taken at the traditional Plzeň Day in the Senate, held on 5 September. The photo comes with a quote, “Plzeň in the Senate should be represented by someone who lives in Plzeň!”, Kantorová’s name and a call to support her in the second round.

Reaction from Kupka and Fiala

“Lumír Aschenbrenner said in a video today that he would not give anyone his endorsement in the second round. That made the billboard showing him with Ms Kantorová all the more surprising to me. I categorically disagree with the look of this billboard and consider it unacceptable,” Kupka wrote on the social network X in the evening.

Earlier, Kupka’s predecessor as head of ODS, former prime minister Petr Fiala, had criticised the billboard: “I saw a billboard on which an ODS senator supports the ANO candidate in the second round of the Plzeň election. I absolutely do not understand this. It is unacceptable to me. I trust the ODS leadership will deal with it.”

Aschenbrenner’s response

Aschenbrenner did not distance himself from the billboard, but he did not say outright that he had endorsed Kantorová either. According to him, the original mock-up was sent to him by Kantorová herself. “I said: ‘Madam colleague, do not put my name under my photo, do not put my text under my photo.’ Of course, I cannot forbid anyone from using my photo if I am in it. Let everyone understand it as they wish,” he told the ČTK agency. He agreed to the use of the photo, and he stands by the slogan: “That quote is mine, I have always said so. If someone uses it, I stand behind it.”

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz