Three Years Without a Mayor: Czech Village of Brodec Can't Find Anyone Willing to Lead

The village of Brodec near Louny in northern Czechia has gone almost three years without being able to elect a mayor. Between January 2023 and March 2026, local authorities called by-elections for the village council eight times — and on seven occasions, not even the minimum required seven candidates came forward. According to the Interior Ministry's press office, no other Czech village has failed to hold elections this many times over the past decade.

The trouble began in 2022, when the previous mayor, Jana Hrušková, decided to step down for family and work reasons. Even though she gave the village two years' notice, residents still couldn't put together a list of seven candidates. Under Czech law, when this happens, the Interior Ministry appoints a temporary administrator to run the village until enough people are willing to stand for election. In Brodec, that role fell to official Martin Pech.

How Village Life Ground to a Halt

Before 2022, the hub of community life for Brodec's roughly 80 residents was the local fire station, where villagers held festivals, sold beer and lemonade, and gathered near the playground next door. "It was the heart of the village," says Michal Vinš, one of the community's active residents. After several fruitless meetings with potential candidates, the administrator shut down the fire station building, apparently hoping this would push locals into running for office. It didn't work — instead, community life in the village simply stopped.

Residents complain that the administrator only shows up in the village for a couple of hours on Tuesdays, spending the rest of his time working as a regular ministry official elsewhere. Catching him in person is nearly impossible, since most villagers are at work during those hours. Former mayor Hrušková claims Pech never hid the fact that the role "annoys" him. The Interior Ministry, for its part, described his work as "entirely standard, proportionate and sufficient," adding that responsibility for the village's development should rest with the residents themselves.

An Attempted "Takeover" and a New Chance

In the second half of last year, the race unexpectedly attracted candidates nobody in the village recognized — people who, contrary to legal requirements, weren't even officially registered as living there. "That put everyone on alert — suddenly there was a list of names, and nobody knew any of them," recalls local activist Petr Kotek. Under pressure from unhappy residents, the candidates withdrew, but the episode spurred locals to take matters into their own hands again.

Kotek and Vinš have since put together a team of seven and plan to run in this year's October municipal elections under the banner "Together for Brodec" — with Kotek as the candidate for mayor and Vinš as his deputy. They're counting on residents' support and hoping administrator Pech will cooperate in handing over village affairs. One of their key campaign promises is to give the village back its fire station as a place for community gatherings.

A Nationwide Problem

According to Jakub Čapek, a political scientist at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University, the shortage of candidates in small villages is a nationwide trend, and the number of villages run by government-appointed administrators is likely to grow. It's already known that at least three villages — Krchleby, Slavnič and Rokytovec — will be left without a mayor after the October 9–10 elections due to a lack of candidates.

What's more, in many villages the number of candidates exactly matches the number of council seats — meaning if just one person drops out, the election collapses again. "A third of villages are now living without any democratic competition, and that share keeps growing," Čapek notes. One possible solution, he suggests, is merging smaller villages with larger ones, though he admits the idea is politically unfeasible for now and would require changes to the law. Opinions in Brodec itself are divided on the matter too: some residents favor merging with neighboring Louny, but most active locals want the village to remain independent.

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Source: seznamzpravy.cz