In exactly two weeks, the Czech Republic will go to the polls again for regional elections. For a long time, these elections have been viewed by the public as ‘second-order’ elections, reflected in the turnout of roughly a third of eligible voters. According to political scientist Lubomír Kopeček of the SYRI National Institute and Masaryk University, this is unlikely to change, and can also be observed from the campaign. This year’s regional elections have also seen a drop in candidates; While four years ago there were almost ten thousand, now there are 8,280 candidates.
“Czech voters perceive long-term regional elections as less important, and the view of the media and political parties is very similar,” said Kopeček. “The result will probably be the same as it was in the past, and about 30-40% of people will come to the elections, i.e. significantly less than the number of people who go to the parliamentary or presidential elections. If I were to express it in political terminology, the regional elections and the Senate elections, the first round of which will take place simultaneously, are second-order elections.”
The decrease in the number of candidates is related to the lower number of participating lists. Kopeček sees this as a result of the efforts of political entities to work together to avoid failing in the elections. He expects an extremely diverse form of regional councils, driven by the fact that the same electoral threshold of 5% applies to political parties and electoral coalitions in the regional elections.
“There will be quite a lot of lists that exceed this threshold,” said Kopeček. “A number of them are already going into the elections as a coalition, which will diversify the shape of the regional councils and increase their fragmentation. It will also be reflected in the formation of regional councils.”
Kopeček said it could be expected that ANO will win in most regions, as it is currently the strongest political entity in the country. However, this will not necessarily translate into ANO governors or the creation of ruling regional coalitions. At the same time, there is the question of how the regional election results will affect the national sphere.
“Regional elections in the past have never led to the fall of the government, despite the often poor results of the governing parties,” added Kopeček. “Of course, they can introduce a certain amount of tension into the government coalition, weaken its unity or contribute to the replacement of a particular minister. In the end, even the poor results of some government parties in the European elections did not lead to any fundamental changes.”
The 2024 regional and Senate elections will take place on Friday and Saturday, 20-21 September. Thirteen regions will elect new representatives, who will then serve a four-year mandate. ANO will be defending their largest-party position in ten regions from the last elections.
