The Czech legislative election of 2021: Hlasité "ne" takzvané "ano“ party

The 2021 legislative election of the Czech Republic (aka Czechia) resulted in a resounding rejection of the ANO (Czech for yes) party of incumbent PM Andrej Babis; the title of this post means "A resounding no to the so-called yes party" in English.

The poll-topper this time was the SPOLU ("Together") alliance led by Petr Fiala's Civic Democratic Party (ODS), and also consisting of previous coalition partners in ODS-led governments, namely the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and TOP 09. They polled 27.8%, narrowly ahead of ANO 2011's 27.1%, although due to seat allocations at regional level it was ANO that won the most seats, 72 compared to SPOLU's 71. Notably, ANO 2011 finished third in the Czech capital, Prague, and did best in areas closest to the borders with Slovakia and Germany. Since taking office in 2017, Mr Babis has been dogged by his past as a secret police informant under Gustav Hacek's regime (Gustav Hacek was communist ruler of Czechoslovakia from 1968 to 1987) suspected fraud and corruption (ironic given that ANO 2011 ran on an anti-corruption platform on its inaugural run), and by continued protests against his tenure, in light of the former two allegations. Czech's younger generations, particularly those young enough to have been born after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, were particularly aggrieved by ANO 2011's failure to make any real change to Czech politics, especially amidst the coronavirus crisis, and thus it is unsurprising that SPOLU did best amongst younger, more socially liberal, more prosperous voters.

In this election, the liberal pro-internet freedom Pirate Party ran with the centrist and localist STAN (Independents and Mayors) party; this proved to be a serious mistake for the former and it alienated its key metropolitan base. Although that alliance gained 9 seats from the respective parties' 2017 totals, giving it 37, only 4 of these went to the Czech Pirate Party (compared to 22 in 2017), in spite of the alliance highlighting key corruption cases involving both ODS and ANO 2011. However, this is much better than the pirate politics movement has fared across Europe overall-Iceland is the only other European country with a significant "Pirate Party".

Due to the 5% threshold (for single parties, it was 8% for alliances of two parties and 11% for alliances of three or more parties), Tomio Okamura's nationalist right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party (similar to the Swiss People's Party, but with a stronger focus on anti-immigration) was the only other party to win seats; it won 20, a decrease of 2 from 2017. They lost a considerable number of votes to the Tricolour-Svobodna-Soukhromnici alliance, whose platform is similar to SPD's but less extreme; that alliance polled 2.76%, not even close to the 5% threshold. 

The traditional left parties in the Czech Republic, the Social Democrats (CSSD) and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) provided partnership and confidence and supply to Mr Babis' government during the last Czech parliament, and paid the price. Both the CSSD and the KSCM were eliminated from the Chamber of Deputies, polling just 4.65% and 3.6% respectively; furthermore the KSCM did not cross the 5% threshold in any region. Unsurprisingly, their voter base felt betrayed by continued support of a Prime Minister who was for some time under investigation for fraud and corruption, although the KSCM is like similar parties in Europe in long-term trouble anyway due to its general inability to attract younger voters. These two were beaten by a new anti-corruption party-Prisaha-but it failed to differentiate itself enough from ANO 2011 or the Pirates-STAN alliance to win enough support; it polled 4.68% and did not win any seats. ODS would likely have suffered a similar, if not quite as humiliating, fate to the CSSD and KSCM-seen as "old order" parties by many Czech voters-had it not formed the SPOLU alliance.

The Green Party won just 1%, once again failing to win any seats; it was offered a chance to join the Pirates-STAN alliance but rejected this, and it came to regret this decision as the environmentalist leanings of that alliance blunted its vote. Strangely, its best result was not in Prague, but in the Ustecky province which also hosted ANO 2011's best result in the Czech Republic. The wooden spoon of this Czech election went to the Right Bloc, who polled 586 votes.

Given the strong desire to ensure Mr Babis did not win another term as Czech Prime Minister, turnout rose significantly to 65.4%, the highest in a Czech election since 2006. The only realistic outcome is that Petr Fiala will become the new Czech PM, since neither his alliance nor the Pirates-STAN alliance will work with ANO 2011, and only a combination of those alliances can form a majority in the Chamber of Deputies.

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