Prague, June 6 (CTK) – Czech MP Jana Hnykova has left the opposition Dawn movement and its group in the Chamber of Deputies because she disagrees with the opinions held by Dawn leadership, she told journalists today.
Hnykova said she failed in her effort to make Dawn leader Miroslav Lidinsky change the movement’s politics. She criticised the leadership’s recommendation that Dawn members run for nationalist parties, which she labelled extremist.
She said she did not negotiate about running for any other party in the autumn general election. “If I receive any offer, I will consider it,” Hnykova said.
At the end of May, MP Martin Lank left the Dawn movement because he decided to run for the new Realists party in the October elections. Lank, too, said he opposed Dawn’s shift towards extremist parties.
Last month, the Dawn group’s head Marek Cernoch expressed his reservations about the development of Dawn for the same reason. He said he was considering leaving Dawn.
Along with Lank and Hnykova, the Dawn group in the lower house of Czech parliament had seven members.
In the 2013 general election, Dawn won 14 seats in the 200-member lower house under the leadership of populist Tomio Okamura, with whom Dawn MPs clashed in mid-2015. Opinion polls show that Dawn is very unlikely to enter parliament now, while Okamura’s new project, Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), may succeed.
