Czech resort town Rokytnice election list stacked with Trigema staff

On Friday and Saturday, the ski town of Rokytnice nad Jizerou in the Krkonoše Mountains is electing a new town council, and one of the four lists on the ballot is a new movement called Rokytnice v rozjezdu (“Rokytnice Gets Going”) — almost all of its candidates work at the local ski resort, which has been owned since 2023 by the Trigema group of billionaire Marcel Soural, who ranks 86th on Forbes' list of the richest Czechs.

A list made up of resort staff

Trigema is preparing multibillion-crown projects in the town, including a five-star hotel on the site of the former SEBA textile mill and a residential complex next to it. The leader of the Rokytnice v rozjezdu list, Jakub Müller, insists the movement has no ties to Trigema: “The list isn't connected to the resort,” he told reporters, standing in front of the resort's main building, which was decked out in Trigema flags. Müller himself works for the firm that owns the resort and that Trigema bought in 2023; his candidacy papers list his position as head of the transport department. Asked about the number of resort employees on the list, Müller said they were simply his colleagues and fellow local residents.

The resort's influence is also visible in the movement's platform: its very first point calls for developing the resort into a year-round destination — with a bobsled track, a bike park and new summer activities — while promising local residents a 20% discount on ski passes. Over the summer the resort held two events under the very same name as the movement, “Rokytnice v rozjezdu”: the first marked the opening of the bobsled track and included a discussion area on the town's development, and the second continued the theme. Müller explains the matching names by saying that a friend of his handles marketing for the resort.

Registered as a resident only since July

That friend, Eva Bouškova, is also on the Rokytnice v rozjezdu list — in tenth place. She calls the matching names a coincidence and denies that they used the resort's events to promote a political brand. Yet according to the business register, she only registered permanent residency in Rokytnice this past July, while describing herself on social media as a Trigema employee. Permanent residency is a mandatory condition for standing in a town's local elections; Bouškova herself explains this by saying she spends part of the week in town. Trigema project manager Kristina Klausová, who is running for the same movement in 14th place, registered her residency in Rokytnice in July as well. A Trigema spokesperson did not respond to questions about employees' involvement in the election.

A trace of a former Prague politician

The movement has another tie to Trigema. According to the domain registry, the candidate list's website is registered to the firm Fresh Services, 40% of which belongs to Ondřej Prokop, a former Prague municipal politician (ANO). Prokop previously led the ANO list in Prague elections but left politics after reports surfaced about apartment purchases and unclear income. Müller says he doesn't know this former leader of Prague's ANO and that Prokop is not involved in their project. However, his running mate — local businessman, lift operator and sitting councillor Petr Udatný, previously elected for the movement “Health, Sport and Prosperity” — linked Prokop's involvement directly to Trigema: “He's hanging around it… working on various projects. He's Trigema,” Udatný said. Prokop himself did not answer his phone on Tuesday, citing being busy, and asked that questions be sent by text message — but never replied to them.

The mayor: old debts are not forgotten

Rokytnice's sitting mayor, Petr Matyáš (the “Mayors for the Liberec Region” movement), whom the new movement has criticized, is skeptical: “The list is made up of resort employees, and that raises questions about whose interests these people will serve when making decisions,” he says. Matyáš himself admits the town waited a long time for an investor on Trigema's scale and that favorable conditions were created for the company during negotiations. In early September, councillors approved a major change to the town's zoning plan that will allow the cable cars to be extended, linking Rokytnice's Horní Domky resort with the Studenec resort and, eventually, with the slopes of Harrachov.

Even so, the town of 2,500 residents still remembers when Rokytnice was the most indebted municipality in the country. In the 1990s, the town issued 120 million crowns in bonds and took out a further 140-million-crown loan to build a cable car up the mountain and a wastewater treatment plant, which later led to the town losing property at forced auctions; it only paid off its debts in 2005. According to Matyáš, the loan at the time was approved by councillors tied to the Spartak sports club, which then owned the resort, against the wishes of the mayor at the time. “That's the flip side of the coin: a resort can't be run by people who promote interests other than the town's,” the mayor believes.

A similar situation emerged this year in the town of Rozvadov, where a list running under the “Domov” party banner was made up of employees of the local Kings casino. Casino owner Richard Kučík is tied to firms that own large tracts of land near Rozvadov, where a 180-million-crown logistics center had previously been planned. The Domov party denied such plans on Facebook, but law enforcement is already looking into the pre-election situation in Rozvadov following a police complaint.

Read also: Permanent residency registration in Czechia for foreigners: deadlines, documents, landlord refusal

Source: seznamzpravy.cz