ANO won 18 mandates in the Vysočina elections, SOCDEM three mandates and SPD with Trikolora and PRO only two.
“We agreed with the coalition partners on cooperation. I will be nominated for governor, there will be seven members of the ANO movement and two councilors for Social Democracy in the council,” announced the leader of the ANO movement and regional chairman Martin Kukla at a press conference in Jihlava in the afternoon.
The third coalition partner, the trio of SPD, Trikolora and PRO, will have the vacant post of chairman of the council committee, which will deal with safety and the construction of new units at the Dukovany nuclear power plant. It will be filled by MP Radek Koten, the electoral leader of the group.
“We place great emphasis on the completion of the nuclear power plant in Dukovany and safety,” said Kukla.
Already last Saturday, after the election results were tallied, he announced that he did not want to rely on a narrow majority and would rather rely on more votes. “We do not think that 23 votes out of 45 would not be completely stable, it is the majority. We are going to jointly address other parties to support the future coalition from the opposition,” Kukla responded on Friday.
Martin Kukla, leader of the ANO movement and future governor
Jiří Pokorný, who is now the deputy mayor of Jihlava, businessmen Otto Vopěnka and Jiří Horký, business manager Pavel Řehoř and two Třebíč deputy mayors, Miloš Hrůza and Pavel Franěk, should sit on the council for the ANO movement.
The Social Democracy will send former governor and orthopedist Jiří Běhounk and current deputy governor Vladimír Novotný to the council. “We are concerned with Vysočina, we are looking for ways to make it work,” SOCDEM leader Běhounek, who should be in charge of the health sector, said of the new coalition. He has traditionally talked about the “art of the possible”, and as the oldest member of the council, he will not be swayed by critical voices towards the form of the new coalition.
With the exception of the Social Democrats, all parties in the current regional coalition refused further negotiations with ANO. “We reject coalition cooperation with the ANO, SPD, Trikolora and PRO and Stačilo!,” announced on Monday the current governor Vítězslav Schrek, who was the number one candidate of Společné (ODS, TOP 09 and Starostové pro citizens) and received the most preferential votes in Vysočina.
The Mayors for Vysočina (STAN + SNK-ED) and KDU-ČSL also refused to cooperate during the week. But today, Lukáš Vlček, chairman of the STAN movement in Vysočín, entered the game again when he contacted Martin Kukla with an offer for further negotiations.
“If ANO wants to rule with extremists, it is of course their political responsibility in a situation where other formats (coalitions) could still be formed,” ČTK quoted Vlček in response to the announced coalition agreement.
“Mr. Vlček spoke at the last minute, that’s not correct. The coalition agreement is currently signed and is unchangeable,” Kukla responded at the press conference.
The accumulation of vacated positions will also be discussed, the leaders of the newly formed coalition do not see a problem in acting in multiple positions at the same time. Kukla and Koten are members of parliament, Franěk, Hrůza and Pokorný in town halls.
