Prague, Oct 9 (CTK) – Jaroslav Kubera (Civic Democrats, ODS), Marian Jurecka (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) and Jiri Pospisil (TOP 09) gained the highest number of preferential votes in the weekend Czech regional elections, which catapulted them from unpromising to leading positions on their parties’ lists of candidates.
According to the election server’s data, Kubera, a senator and mayor of the town of Teplice, ran on the 55th position on the ODS list of candidates in the Usti Region, north Bohemia.
Receiving 1,670 (10.49 percent) preferential votes, he was elected to the second position.
Jurecka, who is agriculture minister, ran on the unpromising 55th position for the KDU-CSL in the Olomouc Region, north Moravia. Preferential votes were given to him by 1,235 people (6.4 percent), which catapulted him to the fourth position.
Pospisil, a MEP, moved from the 50th place on TOP 09’s list of candidates in the Plzen Region, west Bohemia, up to the first position after receiving 2,819 (24.79 percent) preferential votes.
In the Senate election, the first round of which was held simultaneously with the regional election on Friday and Saturday, many well-known personalities failed to advance to the runoff vote due next week.
The candidates who failed include anti-Islam activist Martin Konvicka, former Sazka giant betting company director Ales Husak, popular musician Antonin (Felix) Slovacek, dancer Vlastimil Harapes and Energy Regulatory Office chairwoman Alena Vitaskova.
Other defeated candidate are, for example, former Olympic weightlifting winner Oto Zaremba, composer Petr Hannig and actor and Silesia Theatre director Ilja Racek.
The senators who failed to defend their seat include former Olomouc mayor and former Olomouc Region governor Martin Tesarik (Social Democrats, CSSD).
The attempt at a comeback by controversial Miroslav Sladek, leader of the far-right Republicans, a former party in parliament, was also a failure.
rtj/dr
