TIL that the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic believes in astrology.
Jesus fucking Christ. Wonder if he’s been using it to take care of covid19. If so it would explain why covid19 has been handled so badly as of late.
It’s weird that the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic does not have a verified Twitter account because there are multiple fake accounts of him.
His last two serious posts on his actual account have been ratioed at more than 2 to 1 by readers. As a matter of fact, his tweets get ratioed on a regular basis. He must be aware of it because he retweeted a story about a story from Deutsche Weekly about a doctor saving newborns to try not to get ratioed. So far, so good there but it would be quintessential Czech to see that getting ratioed too.
I mean has Trump ever been ratioed before? Has any American POTUS since the creation of Twitter ever been ratioed? Still faith in leaders in America. Here, the majority of people hate the PM but he isn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon according to popularity polls as of the end of July.
Also ratioed include the official Ministry of Health account and the Minister of Health himself, Adam Vojtech (who also doesn’t have a verified account).
Basically it’s legal vote buying from the Prime Minister. There’s a Senate election coming up soon and ANO has only 7 of the 81 seats. They want more and giving 5000 krowns to old people to get them to vote might be of benefit. Of course, it could kill them with covid becoming worse.
The Czech government here keeps saying that the virus is less deadly compared to March but hospitalizations have increased by almost 50% in the last month. There were 34 deaths in July and 49 in August.
That said, the number of active cases has nearly doubled in that time. So, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I think it’s a political line to take because they want to avoid implementing further restrictions at all cost, especially with an election coming up. A lockdown would probably politically crush ANO in the election.
It’s a small but very vocal minority.
According to a poll by the public broadcaster ZDF last Friday, only 10% of those surveyed said they believed the German government’s coronavirus restrictions to be excessive, while 60% thought they were exactly right and 28% said they were not strict enough.
https://twitter.com/OtazkyVM/status/1307622993439477761
ANO losing ground in latest opinion polls. Their handling of covid’s second wave is definitely screwing them over and rightfully so. Social Democrats are also getting hit hard since they formed a government with ANO.
I mean they’re still in the lead by a large margin but the fact that every other party hates them combined with losing seats would likely mean that they wouldn’t be able to form a government. It nearly led to the PM’s resignation last time. This time he definitely wouldn’t be able to pull it off and he’d likely be forced out for sure.
Given the precedent of Czech PMs becoming president later, I’m sure Babis would become the next president but that’s a meaningless position in this country.
The Pirates and Civic Democratic Party would solidify their 2nd and 3rd rankings respectively while the remainder continue bouncing around the 5% fringe. I’m pretty happy to see Pirates gaining more steam.
Man these results would cause chaos.
There were regional elections in the Czech Republic on Friday and Saturday. Regional elections involve elected officials in every part of the country but Prague. Think of the region’s leaders as governors and the local politicians as the Czech version of state representatives. Despite the pandemic, turnout for the regional elections was higher than both 2012 and 2016 at 38%.
After 2016, ANO controlled 9 of the 13 regions in the Czech Republic. Political pollsters predicted that that would increase to 10 and they were right. In another region, they tied with a coalition of international and regional parties. One was won by a regional party and another was won by Mayors and Independents.
Despite their low turnout, regional elections are important because they often act as a precursor for what the next national election, which is coming in 2021, would look like. While ANO maintained their position as the most popular party in the country, they had some pretty terrible news. The parties that they have a minority government with (Social Democrats and Communists) did terribly.
The Social Democrats went from controlling two districts in 2016 to none. They went from obtaining 15.3% of the vote in 2016 to 4.93%. They went from 125 regional seats to 37. The Communists are in even worse shape. Their 86 seats have gone down to 13 and they received 4.76% of the vote instead of the 10.6% they got in 2016. Both parties have been around since the creation of the Czech Republic and both probably have a 50/50 shot at not being part of the next government. This would truly be a nightmare scenario for ANO since most of those seats would likely go to Pirates.
Speaking of which, the big winner is without question Pirates. They went from 3 to 91 seats, stealing a lot of the Social Democrats and Communist sports. In the process, they became the second most popular party in the regions. Freedom and Direct Democracy went from 2 to 35 seats, mostly taking seats from the Civic Democratic Party which lost 23 seats.
It appears that we’re seeing a significant shift on the left. When the old left formed a government with ANO, a lot of pissed off voters went elsewhere. That elsewhere appears to be Pirates. Given their popularity in Prague, it’s pretty likely that they will become the new left and the largest opposition party to ANO in 2021.
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Along with regional elections come Senate elections. The seats are staggered in such a way that 1/3 of the 81 seats are up for grabs every 2 years. They are filled in a two-round voting system. With the seats staggered like this, parties tend to rise and fall slower here than in the Chamber of Deputies where all 200 seats are up for grabs every four years.
The following seats need to be defended:
Social Democrats: 10
Chrstian Democratic Union: 6
ANO 2011: 3
Civic Democratic Party: 2
Senator 21: 2
Freeholder Party of the Czech Republic*: 1
Mayors for the Liberec Region^: 1
Green Party": 1
Mayors and Independents: 1
*Cooperates with Civic Democratic Party in votes
^Cooperates with Mayors and Independents in votes
"Cooperates with Christian Democratic Union in votes
Projected Seats:
Mayors and Independents: 8 (+7)
Civic Democratic Party: 5 (+3)
Christian Democratic Union: 4 (-1)
ANO: 3 (0)
Independents: 2 (+1)
Freeholder Party of the Czech Republic: 1 (0)
Pirates: 1 (+1)
Senator 21: 1 (-1)
Social Democrats: 1 (-9)
TOP 09: 1 (+1)
Green Party; 0 (-1)
Mayors of the Liberec Regions: 0 (-1)
Projected Senate Seats:
Mayors and Independents: 26
Civic Democratic Party: 22
Christian Democratic Union: 14
ANO: 7
Senate 21: 5
Social Democrats: 4
Independent: 2
Freeholder Party of the Czech Republic: 1
Pirates: 1
TOP 09: 1
So why do the Mayors and Independents do so well in the Senate but shit in the Chamber? It’s because they’re really a combination of a bunch of small local candidates and focus on financially supporting them in smaller elections rather than affecting things on a national level through the Chamber of Deputies. They tend to focus on center/center-right candidates.
But man the connection that the Communists and Social Democrats have with ANO is crushing them. The Communists lost their lone Senate in 2018 and the Social Democrats look like they’re going to lose over 2/3 of their Senate seats this year.
If the 2021 legislative elections end up like this, Babis might end up resigning and run for president next.
Brief summary of Prates and ANO policies or position on the left right axis please?
Pirates are center-left. In terms of ideology, the closest platform to theirs is the UK’s Labour Party. They initially came in as a party that focused more on issues related to the internet like copyright law and internet privacy. They’ve now become the new leftist party in the country.
ANO is a populist party that’s basically a catch-all with a mix of right and left views. I’d say they’re center-right though others put them in the center. They’re akin to Italy’s Five Star Movement.
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And I guess they’re still as racist af when it comes to the Romany and Muslims?
I mean they’re not public with it like the far-right but yeah bigotry towards Muslims and Romany is not exclusive to one party. They’re just varying degrees of it.
Golden Dawn leaders found guilty of running a criminal organization in Greece.
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Link…
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Holy shit. Athens would just be a pile of ashes if Golden Dawn wasn’t declared a criminal organization.
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The three center-right parties in the Czech Republic have formed a preelection coalition
This was a possibility for a while but was made official when they saw the latest poll which has the Social Democrats and Communist parties (both part of ANO’s minority government) missing the 5% cut in next year’s election. Along with that, ANO polled its worst since they formed their first government in 2017.
Should also be noted that the results of the poll are based on polling from September 21st to October 9th. So it doesn’t factor in all of the massive flubbing by ANO since then.
The thing that’s weird between these 3 is how different they are despite being center-right. TOP 09 is a fan of migration and pro-Europeanism. ODS is opposed to it and Eurosceptic. Neither party has a tinge of social conservatism to it which makes it weird to see a Christian conservative party join in. Seems that the only thing they have in common is getting rid of the current PM and his party.
It’s tilting when the right manage to put differences aside when you know how bad the left often are at doing the same.
Throughout the 80s here there was an anti-Tory majority in the country, but because it was split between Labour and the centrist party in a first past the post system the Tories ended up winning three GEs on the trot and changed the whole country markedly for the worse.
Thing is that there’s almost no way they’ll form an effective minority government. They simply won’t get enough votes. TOP and KDU have spent the last 4 years bouncing around the 5% threshold. The last poll had them at 6 and 5.5% respectively.
Voters that have left the Social Dems and Communists are now supporting Pirates. It has made Pirates the most popular opposition party in the country. If they can come to terms with Mayors and Independents, it will be very competitive.
Simply put the fate of the government will depend on how many people stick with small minority parties rather than voting for more popular ones.
Exactly what Icelandic women did in the 70s. Got an equal pay law passed the next year.
Of course Poland’s been having abortion strikes and protests for years now.