CONFIRMED: Czech vice-mayor resigns over antigypsyist remarks

Pataky also told the Czech media she had resigned. The municipal department at first did not officially confirm the information, nor did the ANO movement.

However, just before 18:00, the Mayor of the Municipal Department of Moravská Ostrava and Přívoz, Petr Veselka (ANO), confirmed the resignation of his vice-mayor to the Czech News Agency (ČTK).

“Madame Vice-Mayor has resigned. She was really crushed and wants to apologize. She also wants to personally apologize to others involved,” said Vishwanathan, who said he was greatly surprised by the stereotypical opinions expressed by the vice-mayor in the interview that led to her resignation.

“She has been involved in looking for models of desegregation and the entire thing does not make much sense to me. However, her remarks were certainly an enormous mistake,” Vishwanathan said.

“I am no longer vice-mayor,” Pataky told news server iDNES.cz on Monday afternoon. “I am sick of the media, you have killed a normal person who has been working with the Romani community for more than 20 years. All because of one unfortunate sentence,” she said, adding that she would not comment further.

However, according to the Mayor of the Municipal Department of Moravská Ostrava and Přívoz, Petr Veselka (ANO), that statement could not yet be considered official. He said the ANO club was meant to review the scandal during the local assembly meeting at 18:00 today.

Just before 18:00, everything changed and Mayor Veselka confirmed that the vice-mayor has taken personal responsibility for her remarks. “We have been discussing this situation with Madame Vice-Mayor as the local council. Although she apparently meant many of her remarks differently, they were naturally unacceptable. I am glad she has faced up to the whole situation,” Veselka said in a press release.

Until a new vice-mayor is chosen, Veselka will manage Pataky’s agenda himself. “The election of a new vice-mayor will take place at the February session of the local assembly,” he said, adding that the ANO club will choose the candidate in the weeks to come.

According to the mayor, the local coalition partners, the Czech Pirate Party and SPOLU (Together), agree to this approach. “Nothing will change in the coalition, this change just affects the vice-mayor for the ANO movement. I believe the high-quality cooperation within the coalition will continue,” the mayor said.

Veselka said Pataky had done a good job during her last six years in office. “I would be quite unhappy if this recent event overshadowed the more than six years of work that Madame Vice-Mayor Pataky has done for our municipal department. Big investments managed to be made into our schools, the provision of social services has improved, many projects have been realized. Alena Pataky deserves great thanks for all of that,” he added.

Veselka had said earlier that afternoon that Pataky’s resignation was not yet official and said the ANO club would be meeting at 18:00 to discuss it. Michaela Tichá, head of the local mayor’s office, told news server Romea.cz that the meeting would be held this evening, after which an official statement would also be made available.

Mayor Veselka told the Czech News Agency (ČTK) this morning that the ANO movement had discussed the situation at the party level and addressed it with their local coalition partners, but that it would be the position of their club in the local assembly in particular that should be essential. The alleged resignation transpired after news server Romea.cz reported on Friday that the vice-mayor had made her racist remarks in an interview for news server Okraj.cz, stating among other things that: “The mentality of the Roma has not changed since the 13th century because of their absolutely different equipment, genetically speaking.”

After Pataky was criticized, she called the remark “unfortunate”, but defended it in an altered form in follow-up interviews. While Pataky said she intended to apologize, she refused to resign on Friday, which intensified the criticism further.

Her remarks were condemned, among other people, by the chair of the ANO movement, Andrej Babiš, who called them totally unacceptable. “[Those remarks] are supporting prejudices against which I have tried to fight for a long time,” Babiš said, adding that he did not understand in the least how anybody could say such a thing.

However, the former PM did not openly call for her to resign even as her remarks continued to divide the political scene. Pataky was also criticized by Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský (Christian Democrats – KDU-ČSL), who called her remarks racist and stupid.

“Generalizations about a whole ethnicity and attributing their failures in school to genetics is totally unacceptable and unethical,” said Zdechovský. A Czech lawmaker seated in the lower house, Michaela Šebelová (Mayors and Independents – STAN) weighed in to say that she believed an apology would not be enough and that such rhetoric has no place in politics.

Central Bohemian Regional Coordinator for Ethnic Minorities Cyril Koky went even further and considered filing a report of a crime against the vice-mayor for her remarks. “Degrading remarks by politicians from various parties about Czech Roma cannot just be tolerated and left without a response,“ Koky told news server Romea.cz.