Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) will meet Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Bartos (Pirates) this morning to discuss the situation in the Pirate Party after the unsuccessful elections at the weekend.
Bartos said on Facebook yesterday that he would go to the meeting with a list of things that must work differently for government cooperation to make sense to Pirate voters.
The Pirates lost heavily at the weekend’s regional elections, dropping from 99 regional representatives to just 3. On Sunday, the entire leadership announced its resignation. The new leadership will be chosen on 9 November. Bartos will not run for the party leadership.
The opposition movement ANO won the elections in 10 of the 13 Czech regions, as in the previous regional elections four years ago.
“These days, I will hold important meetings about the current situation, including a meeting with Ivan Bartos tomorrow morning to discuss the current state of the digitization of the construction procedure and the situation in the Pirate Party,” said Fiala.
The digitisation of construction procedures started on 1 July. Since its launch, it has been plagued by difficulties, but the Regional Development Ministry headed by Bartos has long stated that it is working to eliminate them. Fiala said about two weeks ago that the system is not improving as quickly as he would like. However, he repeatedly rejected opposition calls for Bartos’ dismissal, saying that would not solve the shortcomings and errors of the digitalisation.
Some Pirates are now debating whether the party should leave the coalition government with Spolu (ODS, KDU-CSL, TOP 09) and the Mayors and Independents. The Pirates have four MPs in the 200-member Chamber of Deputies, and the ruling coalition would maintain its majority without their votes. The party currently has three ministers in the government: Legislation Ministry Michael Salomoun, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, and Bartos.
Salomoun (Pirates) told journalists yesterday that it would not make sense for the Pirates to leave the government with unfinished business, adding that he respected Bartos’s decision to resign. “For me, it makes no sense to leave what we started in the government. I believe we will manage to finish our work,” he said.
Lipavsky described the collective resignation of the entire Pirate board as a hasty decision, although he said he did support it. However, he said he didn’t consider himself a suitable candidate for party chair.
Lipavsky thanked Bartos for his work, saying the outgoing Pirate leader had built a political party from scratch that had made it to the government and the European Parliament. However, he also said that several fundamental changes need to be made in the party. He said he and other Pirates had sought these changes in previous years, but there was no will and they failed to push them through. “We need to clearly define ourselves against the radical left,” he said.
Changes are also needed in relation to the Pirate Internet Forum, he said. “At the moment we are having a number of unproductive discussions on the internet. That’s why I said we should shut it down, it’s going nowhere,” he said. Political discussion, he said, should lead to the resolution of issues, which is not happening on the forum.
Pirate MPs and ministers held an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss the party’s further participation in the government.
Jakub Michalek, the chair of the Pirates’ parliamentary group, outlined seven points on social media that the Pirates believe the coalition should push for in the last year before the parliamentary elections, with which they will enter negotiations on the continuation of the five-member coalition cabinet.
Michalek mentioned the digitisation of the construction sector as a top priority, which the other coalition parties should support wholeheartedly and not “continue to put heat under the boiler”. He also mentioned the construction of 5,000 state-supported flats, the provision of nursery school places, the legalisation of cannabis and the introduction of new curricula in the 2025/26 school year.
According to the Pirate MPs, the government should also make a clear statement against the “oligarchic-media complex that is draining citizens’ wallets”. He mentioned businessmen Daniel Kretinsky and Pavel Tykac by name.
The governor of the Plzen region, Rudolf Spotak, is among the names being considered as a possible leader of the Pirates. Hana Hajnova, leader of the Pirates in Vysocina, told CTK that she is willing to participate in the leadership. Jana Holomcik Leitnerova, the current third vice-chair, will also consider running.
Marketa Gregorova, an MEP and current vice-chair, is not planning to run for the post of chair.
Speaking to journalists in New York, President Petr Pavel said questions about whether the resignation of the Pirates’ leadership should be followed by changes in the government were legitimate, though he said he was not one to advise the government on what it should do in this matter or how it should react to the election results.
