Today, the leadership of the People’s Party confirmed the last nomination for the joint candidate of the Spolu coalition (ODS, KDU-ČSL and TOP 09) for the June European elections. Vojtěch Dobeš from the South Moravian Region will be seventh in the order of the People’s Party, party spokesman Simon Dytrych informed ČTK. Both ODS and TOP 09 have already confirmed their nominations in recent weeks. According to ČTK, the date on which the coalition will present the entire candidate has not yet been set. According to the agreements, the head of the candidate should be occupied by the current MEPs, in the given order, Alexandr Vondra (ODS), Veronika Vrecionová (ODS), Luděk Niedermayer (TOP 09), Tomáš Zdechovský (KDU-ČSL).
Ondřej Krutílek, an analyst of European legislation from the Pravý břech institute, is to run for the fifth place of the Spolu candidate, according to the document approved by the Citizen Democrats. Deputy Ondřej Kolář is to occupy the sixth place for TOP 09, the seventh place will belong to the Deputy Governor of South Bohemia František Talířa, and the eighth place will belong to the director of the cabinet of the Minister of Finance Zbyňek Stanjura (ODS) Filip Benda. From the ninth place, candidate Spolu wants to defend the mandate of KDU-ČSL MEP Michaela Šojdrová. Tenth place is to go to TOP 09 and the deputy mayor of Hradec Králové and advisor to the Minister of Trade Lukáš Řádek.
The People’s Party approved their nominations to the European Parliament last May, but due to the withdrawal of several candidates, they had to repeat the procedure in some regions. Dobeš works as a consultant and assistant to the deputy mayor of Brno, replacing Johnny Heliger, who, according to the press release of the People’s Party, resigned from the candidacy for work reasons. “Out of the nine-member candidate list, four people are part of our youth organization Mladí lidovci. The deputy governor of South Bohemia, František Talíř, is even second behind the leader Tomáš Zdechovský for the KDU-ČSL. Mladí lidovci is the largest youth organization of a political party in the entire Czech Republic. I am very happy that they can work closely with us. For our party, they represent a very important reservoir of talented people who have the will to change the world for the better. One of them is Vojtěch Dobeš, elected even today,” said KDU-ČSL chairman Marian Jurečka about the selection.
According to the list of candidates closed today, the mayor of Slatinice in Olomouc, Ondřej Mikmek, should run for the KDU-ČSL from the 13th place on the Spolu list, from the 15th, the Deputy Minister of Health Václav Pláteník, from the 19th place, the chairwoman of the Young People in Prague Adéla Šilar, from the 21st Dobeš , from the 25th MP Hayato Okamura and from the 27th Prague municipal politician Inga Petryčka.
The president announced the election date for Friday, June 7 and Saturday, June 8. The Czech Republic is to occupy 21 mandates. The ODS now has four representatives in the European Parliament, the People’s Party and TOP 09 have two each.
The Pirates, headed by MEP Marcel Kolaja, will run independently, while economist and former presidential candidate Danuše Nerudová will be at the top of the list of the STAN movement a former MP of the Jan Farský movement. The ANO candidate will be led by the former Minister for Regional Development and current Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Klára Dostálová. The leader of the list of the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement is the former MEP Petr Mach, who in the past headed the Freedom Party.
The ANO movement won the elections in 2019, winning six mandates. It was followed by ODS with four, Pirates and STAN with TOP 09 with three, SPD and People’s Party with two mandates and KSČM with one mandate. According to the chairman of the ODS and the government, Petr Fiala, this year’s result will be the calling card of the cabinet. He would like the parties of the Together coalition to defend their eight mandates in this year’s European elections. Up to the number that the parties will be satisfied with, but according to him, how many parties get into the European Parliament will tell a lot.