The practice of reimbursing political parties for expenses was roughly 60 million Crowns more expensive than in 2018, a sizable increase of over 10%. In addition some parties received funds from the EU as reimbursements for expenses in connection to the European Parliament elections. The numbers were published yesterday by the Ministry of Finance.
The most popular political party in the country, ANO, received 161 Million Crowns. ANO was followed by ODS receiving 85.7 million, and CSSD 75.8 million Crowns to round out the top three. The next six relevant parties were KDL-CSU receiving 55.7 million, Communists receiving 53.7 million, Pirates receiving 45.2 million SPD 41.1 million, STAN receiving 38.8 million and Top09 receiving 32.7 million Crowns from the State in 2019.
The Czech State pays 900,000 Crowns for each Deputy or Senator seat a party holds. The Regional or City of Prague Councilor seats the parties hold are reimbursed at 250,000 Crowns. Then each party which holds over 3% of the vote has the right to subsidies between six and ten million Crowns, depending on the proportion of votes won in the election.
European elections are reimbursed at a rate of CZK 30 for each vote for parties which win at least 1% of the count. In years with country or European elections, the total payouts are much higher. An example is during Czech election years the payouts reach nearly a billion Crowns to parties. Thus the calls to “get out and vote!”
