Czech EP elections show the future does not exist and no solutions are needed to any problems, just a combustion engine for every family!

Absolutely nothing will change about the image of the Czech Republic as a vehicle that is just being towed along by the rest of the European project. For that reason, it is much more interesting to look for the “deeper” motivations of these Czech voters who traditionally spurn the elections to the European Parliament as if they can’t stand the sight of them.

What the media have praised as a “record voter turnout” in the Czech Republic was something more than 36 %, i.e., 15 % lower than the EU average.

The marketing genius named Turek

Most of the Czech electorate still hasn’t realized that the negotiations at the EU level are more important than they might seem from our peripheral position. The Czech political parties enjoy adapting to this fact with a notable dose of creativity.

It is no less important that the Czech parties are silent on essential foreign policy subjects such as the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, relations with neighboring states, tensions in the Balkans, EU arms policy, and the growth of Russian and Chinese influence in Africa.

On topics of such importance, the new star of this Czech non-politics, the coalition of the Oath and Motorists Unite parties [Přísaha – Motoristé sobě] feels not the slightest need to express any views whatsoever or even to mention them.

By the way, the idea to build a campaign on defending something that is as personal and intimate to each and every car driver as the combustion engine was simply a genius marketing move on their part.

What car driver, swayed by his emotional bond with the diesel motor that has been a member of his family for 12 or more years wouldn’t want to defend it? It is also advantageous to avoid any debate about greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on the environment – not one word was said about that during the campaign.

No data on this was presented by this coalition to the voters – for example, the fact that the use of highways in the European Union produces five times more greenhouse gases than does the air traffic, or the fact that personal vehicle use contributes more than 60 % of those emissions. 

I don’t have to worry about the future or offer a solution to this problem. It’s enough to put in my political program that “I support all efforts to overturn the ban on the combustion engine and I will be against any new attempts to push through that ban.”

This is a bit comical if one takes a look at the statements from the biggest automobile manufacturers, to whom the future transition (or rather, the transition already underway) to different kinds of motors or fuel does not seem impossible and nonsensical, companies which have long been actively designing new kinds of mobility.

Betting on old accomplishments

Another quite interesting phenomenon of the Czech elections to the EP was their generally boring campaigns and the defeat of those who were so tame. It is difficult to understand what Tomio Okamura, the Mayors and Independents, or the Pirates were counting on as they somehow both conducted and failed to conduct their campaigns – apparently they were counting on their previous accomplishments and supporters.

Above all, what was astonishing was the Pirates’ inability to reach the very youngest voters who have massively supported them in previous elections. To allow the Association of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO), with its embarrassing TikTok dances and jokes, or Motorists United, with their unintelligent, negative propaganda, to take such a large part of the youngest generation of voters away from them is a very bad look for the Pirates.

The campaign by the domestically governing Spolu (Together) coalition was bland and dull, as if anticipating in advance that their voters were preparing to commit “fouls” by just giving their preferential votes to their “own” parties, above all the voters for the Civic Democratic Party (ODS).

After shamefully eliminating their likely competitors within the Spolu coalition (whether Hayato Okamura or Miroslav Kalousek) who would have been more than certain to earn preferential votes and overtake the ODS party’s cadres and nobodies, the leadership of the ODS, through the almost comedic exaggeration of MP Marek Benda, permitted the violation of all the previous agreements among the parties in the coalition and publicly promoted the casting of preferential votes for “its own” favorite candidates.

MP Benda’s failed mini-campaign was a bit embarrassing, as he did his best, with all his strength, to convince voters to get rid of the coalition’s agreed-upon candidates and cast preferential votes for his own brother so he would make it into an electable spot. By doing so, the ODS unfortunately broke its promises, as it has so many times in the past.

One good piece of news may be the rude awakening delivered to the “Freedom and Direct Democracy” (SPD) movement. They were even overtaken by the far-left coalition Enough! (Stačilo!), led by the communist Kateřina Konečná, who managed to move the blatant demagoguery and stupidity which were once the domain of SPD chair Tomio Okamura to new heights.

In the European Parliament, these two Czech dwarves will have no choice but to acquiesce to the anti-Brussels coalition of France’s Marine Le Pen (National Rally), which won 30 seats, i.e., more than the entire Czech Republic put together.

It will be interesting, and perhaps crucial, to follow their possible collaboration or disputes with Brothers of Italy, the populist (verging on neo-Fascist) party of Italian Prime Minister Meloni, with its 24 MEPs.

Czech politics remains immature

The Czech political scene is not yet mature enough to realize the impacts of the elections to the European Parliament. Can the reader imagine a meeting between the leaders of the movements and parties whose people will represent the Czech Republic in the EP where they would try to agree on the guardrails and the priorities for “defending national interests”?

Can we imagine them managing to speak honestly and openly about the economic, political and security risks of the next few years, about the need to respond to the expansion of Putin’s Russia, about the possibly fundamental transformation to American foreign policy that could be on the horizon?

There are many existentially important crises and problems ahead of us, and none of them will disappear just because we don’t discuss them.

The perspective of Dova Alfona, a commentator for the French daily La Liberation, is so different from what we read here – commenting on the election results, he called on the the more left-leaning part of the new EP to realize the responsibility of their “historical role as the dam holding back fascism”.

Unfortunately, not a single Czech politician exists who understands French President Emmanuel Macron’s response to his party’s loss in the elections to the EP – he dissolved Parliament and called snap elections.

In the speech announcing this brave, statesmanlike, swaggering, musketeer-like move, Macron declared: “We have the choice to write history instead of suffering it.”