Together coalition dominates 2022 Czech Senate elections

The Czech Republic's Together (SPOLU) coalition, which leads the current Czech government under Prime Minister Petr Fiala, dominated this year's elections to the Czech Senate, winning a total of 20 of the 27 seats up for grabs.

While the opposition ANO party sent the most candidates to the head-to-head second round of the Senate elections this weekend at 17, only three of those candidates successfully won seats.

The result leaves ANO with five seats in the 81-seat Czech Senate, the minimum number for maintaining a Senate group. SPOLU parties, meanwhile, leave this weekend's election with a total of 41 seats.

The center-right SPOLU coalition is made up of the political parties ODS, TOP 09, and the Christian Democrats. In winning 20 seats during the Senate elections, all of their supported candidates claimed victory.

The coalition's biggest win was in the Jihlava district, where ANO's Jana Nagyová ran against current Senate chairman Miloš Vystrčil from ODS. Vystrčil won with about 60 percent of the vote.

Former Czech PM and ANO head Andrej Babiš heavily campaigned for Nagyová. Both are defendants in the ongoing Stork's Nest (Čapí hnízdo) case of suspected EU subsidy fraud, which entered a Prague court last month.

"The Together project has a great future," Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said after the election results came in, adding that Vystrčil will most likely retain his position as Czech Senate chairman.

"Andrej Babiš tried to turn the senate elections into a referendum on the government and he lost," wrote TOP 09 head Markéta Pekarová Adamová on Facebook. "I am very happy about the victory of the Together candidates and our coalition partners."

Babiš admitted to journalists in Karlovy Vary that he was disappointed in the results of the Senate election, but pointed out that many of ANO's candidates lost by only a narrow margin, and that the party dominated last weekend's municipal elections.

While SPOLU claimed victory in the Senate elections, their partners in the current government coalition suffered defeat. The Czech Pirate Party sent no candidates to the second round of Senate elections, while STAN won only one seat from six candidates.

Both SPOLU and ANO are expected to announce a candidate for January's presidential election later this month, with Babiš presumed to be running on behalf of ANO.