Results of the Czech municipal elections to be made official on Tuesday

Prague, Sept 26 (ČTK) - The State Electoral Commission has approved the results of the Czech municipal elections held on Sept. 23-24; the results will be released and made official Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, the results of the first round of Senate elections from three constituencies, where voters elected a senator in the first round, will be announced.

From Sept. 27 to Oct. 7, citizens may appeal the results of the election to the administrative courts. For those senators who will be elected in the final round of the election next weekend, voters can register appeals from Oct. 5 to Oct. 14.

Deputy Interior Minister Petr Vokáč and Czech Statistical Office deputy chairwoman Eva Krumpová said that the elections took place without any serious complications.

Vokáč said a court will address an incident in the municipal election in Teplice north Bohemia, where the mayor deleted names from a list of voters. The mayor said 23 individuals changed their place of residence in this small village in an attempt to influence the elections.

As usual, the municipal elections were won by independent candidates and their various local associations, as parties do not seek town halls in smaller municipalities. Independent candidates occupied 47,732 seats this year, 3,367 more than in the municipal elections four years ago.

In terms of parties, the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL)  retained the lead despite the loss of 400 mandates with 3,252 seats. The Civic Democrats (ODS) with 2,294, the Mayors and Independents (STAN plus SLK) with 1,950 seats, and the ANO movement with 1,748 seats.

The largest defeat was suffered by the Social Democrats (ČSSD) and Communists (KSČM). The ANO movement and SPD benefited from these party's failures, which tripled the number of seats to around 500.

Andrej Babiš's ANO movement improved by 64 seats and finished fourth with a gain of 1,748 representatives.

Statistics show that the youngest councilor with an average age of 29.5 years was elected by people in the municipality of Honbice in Chrudim, the municipality with the highest average age of elected representatives is Všepadly in Domažlicko (71.5 years). 

The municipalities of Počepice in the Příbram region, Biřkov in the Klatovsk region, Jestřabí in the Krkonoše region in the Semila region, and Okarec in the Třebíč region have an all-female council, 423 municipalities have only men in the council.

In the Senate elections, the mandate was already defended in the first round by the vice president of the Senate Jiří Růžička (TOP 09) from the Mayors and Ladislav Václavec (ANO), it was newly won by the ODS's Petr Fiala.

Final duels will take place in the remaining 24 districts, in which 17 ANO candidates, nine ODS candidates, six KDU-ČSL candidates, three TOP 09 representatives, and two Starost candidates have advanced.

The turnout in the local elections was 46.07 percent and in the first round of the Senate elections 42.65 percent.