After the Pirates’ crushing defeat in the weekend’s regional and senate elections, party leader Ivan Bartoš announced that his party would not leave the governing coalition and that he would keep his post as deputy prime minister for digitisation, only to be proposed for dismissal by Prime Minister Petr Fiala hours later.
The entire leadership of the Pirate Party (Greens) announced its resignation late on Sunday following the party’s humiliating defeat in the weekend’s regional and senate elections.
After meeting with Fiala on Tuesday, Bartoš announced that his party would not be leaving the coalition and that he would keep his post as deputy prime minister and regional development minister, adding that the two had agreed for the coalition to now pull together and work to deliver on its promises ahead of next year’s general elections.
But to the surprise of everyone, including the coalition partners and the minister himself, Fiala announced just hours after the meeting that he would propose Bartoš’s dismissal, which under Czech law requires the president’s approval.
Bartoš had failed to secure the digitalisation of construction management and did not even acknowledge the mistakes made, Fiala said about his proposal for dismissal.
Fiala will ask the Pirate Party to propose another candidate for the post, the prime minister said, adding that he was not terminating the coalition agreement with the Pirate Party as such, as he was highly satisfied with the performance of the two other Pirate Party ministers in the government – Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský and Legislation Minister Michal Šalomoun.
But according to the Pirates, it is a “betrayal” and a “plot” to get the party out of government, with some of those who spoke at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon saying that Fiala had “succumbed to pressure from the oligarchs”.
Fiala’s request to submit a new name to replace Bartoš was rejected by Pirate leader Jakub Michálek. (Ondřej Plevák | Euractiv.cz)
Source: euractiv.com
