Martin Kuba's Marathon: South Bohemia's Governor Copies Babiš's Playbook in Bid for a New Party

Martin Kuba, governor of the South Bohemian Region who recently left the ranks of ODS, is gearing up for this autumn's municipal and Senate elections with his new political project, "Naše Čechy" (Our Bohemia). According to various polling agencies, the movement is holding steady at between 2.5% (Kantar, May) and 4.7% (NMS, February) — a solid start for a newcomer on the Czech political scene.

Candidate lists officially closed on Tuesday afternoon. Kuba has opted for a cautious strategy: his movement is fielding candidates in roughly a hundred municipalities, skipping the personnel-heavy battlegrounds of Prague and Brno, and focusing instead on southern Bohemia — the region where he holds the strongest position and has the deepest bench of talent.

Expanding Into Other Regions

Still, the movement is trying to gain a foothold beyond its home turf. In the Pardubice Region, Kuba has struck an alliance with the popular local governor Martin Netolický and his movement MY. In the Cheb district, former TV personality Vladimír Kebrle will run under the "Naše Čechy" banner for two seats at once — the Senate and the Cheb city council.

In the Kladno district, Jan Klas, head of the state-run Air Navigation Services, will run for the Senate on the movement's ticket. In Strakonice, sitting ODS senator Tomáš Fiala — who has since switched allegiance to Kuba — will defend his seat. And in Žďár nad Sázavou, the movement may get a boost from Michal Šmarda, former leader of the Social Democrats and long-serving mayor of Nové Město na Moravě.

The Senate's Pivotal Role

If Kuba manages to gain traction in larger cities — besides Cheb, he's also testing the waters in Ostrava, Jihlava, Strakonice and Hradec Králové — it would help him shake off his image as a purely regional player with no real influence on national politics.

Even more crucial to Kuba's national ambitions are the Senate results. Forming his own senatorial caucus requires five seats. If he pulls that off, the movement could rightfully claim the status of a parliamentary party — a strong launching pad ahead of the fight for the Chamber of Deputies. Kuba has already poached one senator from ODS: Zbyněk Sýkora of České Budějovice.

Marketing Straight Out of Babiš's Playbook

Kuba's campaign leans on well-tested tactics rather than inventing anything new. Visually, it echoes the early years of the ANO movement: white shirts against white backgrounds, carefully filtered photos, and staged pairings with the leader.

In substance, too, it amounts to a kind of "ANO in blue." Back when he was still an ODS member, Kuba criticized the ideological vagueness of the party within the Spolu coalition. With his new movement, he has gone all in on ditching ideology altogether — politicians, he argues, shouldn't argue, but should deliver results and solve citizens' real problems.

A telling PR move was the demolition of an illegal structure by a pond in South Bohemia belonging to none other than his own deputy at the regional office and fellow movement member, Lucie Kozlová. There was no direct criticism of political rivals, but the parallel with recent scandals over illegal buildings speaks for itself.

Kuba only sharpened his tone once — over the car accident involving Foreign Minister Filip Turek. There, the physician-turned-politician drew on his years working in emergency medical services. He has also taken a clear stance on public broadcasting funding, backing the current licence-fee system.

Otherwise, Kuba's strategy is built around keeping a slight distance from everyone while offending no one, with an emphasis on efficiency and compromise. The fact that a once-prominent ODS figure is now poaching former Social Democrats speaks volumes: "efficiency" has become the new ideology of Czech politics. Whether the formula that once brought success to Andrej Babiš will work for Martin Kuba too is something this autumn's elections will decide.

Read also: Brno: What to See and Do

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz