Leading Czech opposition parties won the most votes in Senate elections on Saturday, while Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO party failed to secure any of the seats it contested, in one of the first big electoral tests since his coalition took power last year. One third of the 81 seat upper house was up for election, and the opposition held its majority. Babis described the result as catastrophic.
The strongest performer was the pro European Mayors and Independents party, which won 10 of the 14 seats it contested, including two secured outright in the first round last weekend. The Civic Democrats won seven seats. Turnout in the Friday and Saturday run offs was low, and ANO continues to lead national opinion polls, which is why the result embarrasses the government without destabilising it: the lower house is the main legislative chamber and can override Senate vetoes.
The Senate’s real powers are constitutional. It approves constitutional changes, confirms presidential nominees to the Constitutional Court and elects its own speaker, the second highest state official after the president. An opposition majority therefore limits what Babis’s coalition, which includes right wing and far right parties, can entrench, even where it cannot stop day to day legislation.
Since taking office the government has ended direct state military support for Ukraine and challenged European Union climate policies, and it has loosened fiscal policy to raise wages, pensions and transport investment, drawing criticism in a country of 10.9 million with a frugal tradition. The Senate result does not reverse any of that, but it tells the coalition that the electorate that returned it last year is not extending its mandate into the chamber that guards the constitution.