The Prague representatives of the Together coalition (ODS, TOP 09, KDU-ČSL), STAN, and the Pirates managed to finalize the coalition agreement on Friday night. If the parties approve it next week, Prague should see the signing of the document before February 16, when the city council is scheduled to meet.
At the council meeting, a new mayor should be elected, who, according to the agreements, is to be the elected leader of Spolu, Bohuslav Svoboda (ODS).
On Friday, the outgoing mayor, Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates), and the head of the Spolu councilors, Zdeněk Zajíček (ODS), informed us about the completion of the document.
“We have completed the coalition agreement, including the annexes,” Hřib said on Friday. Thursday’s meeting began at around 16:00 and continued in a narrower composition until midnight. Shortly before the meeting, another of the negotiators, Petr Hlaváček, the current deputy mayor for STAN, tweeted about the de facto agreement.
According to Thursday’s statement, the politicians mainly finalized the exact wording of the program and also dealt with personnel issues. Zajíček added that proofreading of the documents is still being processed. Finished documents should head for intra-party approval by all five parties participating in the coalition on Friday or Saturday. In the case of the Pirates, the membership base.
Negotiations after last fall’s election stalled on the distribution of the number of representatives on the City Council and their responsibilities. The Pirates and STAN did not want Together to have a mayoral seat with veto power and a majority on the council. The Pirates originally made their participation in the city’s management conditional on the involvement of the Prague Association, with whom they had reached an agreement. In the end, both parties backed down.
The Together coalition won the municipal elections last autumn, which has 19 seats in the 65-member council. ANO came in second with 14 seats. The Pirates are third with 13 councilors, and Praha Sobě has 11 seats. STAN has five delegates, and the sixth-placed SPD won three seats.