Czech Politics: Fiala government

[Alcibiades]

Spolu won the big cities - Prague, Brno, Plzeň, České Budějovice - and the suburbs around them. They also did well in religious rural areas in central Moravia (Vysočina) that used to be the base of KDU-ČSL and in some other random places - I guess that the patches of very strong results in the mountains on Northern (Krkonoše) and Southwewstern (Šumava) borders are related to tourism: more openness to the world, rich people etc.

The general pattern is that the bigger the city, the better result for Spolu and worse for ANO. ANO's best results are in depressed postindustrial areas in the Northwest (Chomutov, Most, Ústí), Northeast (Ostrava, Frýdek-Místek, Karviná) and Southeast (Znojmo). These areas were all majority German until after WW2, when the original population was deported and replaced by ethnic Czechs. Peripherical location + sh*t local economy + less cohesive population is a very good recipe for success for populists like ANO, SPD, Commies or Zeman in presidential elections.

The base of STAN is in Northern Bohemia around Liberec, and that's where most of municipalities they won are, the rest being mostly personal votes (the Mayors part of Mayors and Independents). The cluster of cyan for Přísaha is Nenačovice and some surrounding villages, where their leader Robert Šlachta lives and the brother of one of their top candidates is mayor. Other patches of color for non-Spolu/ANO parties are basically random noise - most Czech rural municipalities are pretty small, and in a low-ish turnout election in a split party system something like 50 votes can be enough to win a municipality.

It’s interesting how this produces the opposite political effect to in Poland, where the ex-German areas are stronger for PO and weaker for PiS, supposedly because people have fewer deep, traditional local ties and are thus less culturally conservative.

[Alcibiades]

Spolu won the big cities - Prague, Brno, Plzeň, České Budějovice - and the suburbs around them. They also did well in religious rural areas in central Moravia (Vysočina) that used to be the base of KDU-ČSL and in some other random places - I guess that the patches of very strong results in the mountains on Northern (Krkonoše) and Southwewstern (Šumava) borders are related to tourism: more openness to the world, rich people etc.

The general pattern is that the bigger the city, the better result for Spolu and worse for ANO. ANO's best results are in depressed postindustrial areas in the Northwest (Chomutov, Most, Ústí), Northeast (Ostrava, Frýdek-Místek, Karviná) and Southeast (Znojmo). These areas were all majority German until after WW2, when the original population was deported and replaced by ethnic Czechs. Peripherical location + sh*t local economy + less cohesive population is a very good recipe for success for populists like ANO, SPD, Commies or Zeman in presidential elections.

The base of STAN is in Northern Bohemia around Liberec, and that's where most of municipalities they won are, the rest being mostly personal votes (the Mayors part of Mayors and Independents). The cluster of cyan for Přísaha is Nenačovice and some surrounding villages, where their leader Robert Šlachta lives and the brother of one of their top candidates is mayor. Other patches of color for non-Spolu/ANO parties are basically random noise - most Czech rural municipalities are pretty small, and in a low-ish turnout election in a split party system something like 50 votes can be enough to win a municipality.

It’s interesting how this produces the opposite political effect to in Poland, where the ex-German areas are stronger for PO and weaker for PiS, supposedly because people have fewer deep, traditional local ties and are thus less culturally conservative.

Is it the opposite though? - ODS and PiS are more similar than ODS and PO or ANO and PiS.

Certainly in terms of the rest of the country, ODS are winning the areas PO would, and ANO the areas PiS would. In very crude Atlas meme terms, it’s the #elitist vs. #populist divide.

[Alcibiades]

As is often the case in the countries where it could be, quite a striking difference between repopulated ethnically-cleansed regions and the rest of the country.

Although it is interesting that in the Czech Republic, such areas are strongest for what at this stage we can call the populist right, whereas the opposite is true in Poland. My understanding is that a lot of what was once the Sudetenland is very post-industrial, which I suppose would go some way to explaining it.

[Alcibiades]

As is often the case in the countries where it could be, quite a striking difference between repopulated ethnically-cleansed regions and the rest of the country.

Although it is interesting that in the Czech Republic, such areas are strongest for what at this stage we can call the populist right, whereas the opposite is true in Poland. My understanding is that a lot of what was once the Sudetenland is very post-industrial, which I suppose would go some way to explaining it.

That's really interesting, yeah. Isn't Silesia also a heavily postindustrial region?

Yeah, I think that’s right. From a cursory glance at some maps, it seems stronger for PiS, at least outside of the major cities, than the other ex-German areas, though by no means that strong compared to much of the east of the country.