Czech billboard row: ODS senator pictured with ANO candidate in Plzeň

ODS chairman Martin Kupka has called a billboard in Plzeň unacceptable. It shows outgoing ODS senator Lumír Aschenbrenner photographed with ANO candidate Lucie Kantorová. In the second round of the Senate election she will fight for the seat against Karel Řehka, the former chief of the general staff.

ODS reacts

“Lumír Aschenbrenner said in a video today that he would not endorse anyone in the second round. All the more surprised I was by the billboard where he is pictured with Ms Kantorová. I fundamentally disagree with the look of this billboard and consider it unacceptable,” Kupka wrote on X.

Former ODS leader Petr Fiala reacted in a similar vein: “I absolutely do not understand it. It is unacceptable to me. I trust the ODS leadership will deal with it.”

Aschenbrenner himself said in a post on X that he would not support anyone in the second round. “I congratulate both candidates who advanced. I will not give any recommendation, everyone will weigh their own choice. But please: those who can, come again on Friday and Saturday,” he wrote.

Who Aschenbrenner is

This year Aschenbrenner tried to defend his Senate seat in the Plzeň-City district but did not make it to the second round. He was overtaken by Kantorová, while the first round was won by Řehka, running for STAN: 32.86 percent of the vote against Kantorová’s 27.26.

Aschenbrenner joined ODS in 1991. Three years later he was first elected to the council of the Plzeň 2 – Slovany city district and then defended the mandate six times in a row. From 2002 he also sat on the Plzeň city council. He served in the upper chamber continuously from 2014, for 12 years. This year he announced that he would give up his post as deputy head of the district to concentrate fully on the Senate campaign. This time it did not work out.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz