• 25/11/2022
• By wizewebsite
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A handsome assistant (28) among the Pirates' deputies. Ferjenčík is looking forward to the baby after the beating<

The Pirates in the Chamber remain, but greatly weakened. Their result counts as one of the losers of the election. Although he is comforted by the fact that the PirStan coalition finished third and is part of the government negotiations.

"As a coalition of Pirates and Mayors, we received almost 840,000 votes, of which 700,000 votes were actually for the entire coalition. Our voters, the voters of the Pirates, are not used to circling and voted for the entire coalition, with which they were satisfied as it was agreed. And then there were roughly 140,000 voters who circled. We have hundreds of thousands of people here who supported us together, and then some part of the voters who, apparently even under the enormous pressure of the disinformation campaign, said to themselves: I keep hearing something strange about those Pirates," Olga Richterová told CNN Prima News.

"These lies were spread so much that, for example, almost half of the Czechs believed the absolute absurdities regarding strangers moving into their own cottages," she recalled the attacks on the Pirates. PirStan won 839,776 votes (15.62%) in the elections.

The rings snapped their necks. Pikal will head back to IT

Among other things, the current Deputy Speaker of the House Vojtěch Pikal is leaving the House. "Failure needs to be divided into two parts. First of all, as a coalition, we expected a greater election result than 15 percent, and secondly, we did not expect such massive circling across the coalition," Blesk told Zprávám.

Was it a mistake that the Pirates didn't prepare their voters for the possibility that there will be a more pronounced circle? "Maybe they did. But these are not the questions I am solving now, because I have to focus on what's next," admits Pikal.

“I have known all along that the political craft is precarious. One has to be somehow prepared for it, that something like this could happen. I'm not completely derailed, but of course I'll have to sort out a few things. Now I'm focusing on keeping the site going somehow and then I'll find some work back in the industry. I don't see a problem with it," says Pikal, who is a programmer and in the past worked as a software developer and tester in Olomouc or, before entering the House of Representatives, as a software analyst in Prague.

Ferjenčík: Babiš's lies did not pay off. It's rough for us

Pirat Mikuláš Ferjenčík spoke in an interview for Blesk Zprávy when asked what he will do now. The beating of the Pirates at the election took him by surprise, he admits that no one was prepared for this. However, similar to his sister Olga Richterová, who remained in the House of Representatives, he points out that the entire PirStan coalition won over 15 percent of the votes. In addition, Ferjenčík also allowed a glimpse into his privacy. With his wife Blanka, whom he married - in the presence of the chairman Bartoš and of course also his sister Olga Richterová - at the wedding in July 2018, he is looking forward to the third addition to the family. After two boys. Not all pirated news is inherently bad.

Blesk Zprávy: 4 parliamentary mandates instead of 22 - that's a really big pirate drop in the House of Representatives. How do you perceive it? And where do you see specific errors somewhere?

Ferjenčík: There you need to perceive two numbers. Pirates and Mayors 37 mandates, which is 9 more than we had together after the last election. And we have a common program, so I wouldn't turn it into such a tragedy, as the very result of the Pirates looks like.

We will of course analyze it, we did not meet the goal we had of over 20 percent. There were definitely some mistakes, it's probably not worth saying that they didn't happen, but I think that overall the campaign was pretty well done and, above all, it succeeded in meeting the basic goal, which is a democratic majority in the House of Representatives.

You agreed with STAN that you will have two parliamentary clubs. Will there be a problem in the normal functioning of the House if the Pirates club will only have four members?

Of course, we also have an agreement with the Club of Elders and Independents, where we have access to those clubs and we will somehow share documents. Of course, weakening is the big thing that we will talk about, but I believe that we will manage to negotiate a decent place in the government.

Should the Pirates be in the government, even if they won only 4 mandates? Should they insist on government involvement? Even such doubts are now appearing on the pirate forum.

Watch out, the Pirates and Mayors got a total of 37 mandates. We went to the elections as a coalition, we have an agreement to go together into the government or together into the opposition. And the Pirates always kept all the agreements. I think that we should now do our best in the negotiations and then present the result of the negotiations to the members in a referendum, as is our custom.

The poll about the recall of Ivan Bartoš appeared on the pirate forum soon, the results are clear. Is this the place to debate the position of leader?

I am glad that the poll took place. It wasn't even a vote, it was just a member initiative. And it turned out that Ivan has the complete trust of the party to lead the negotiations and that is absolutely essential. The negotiating team is working hard on it, so we'll see what coalition offer we bring to the party.

Pirate kamikaze sank the aircraft carrier of Andrej Babiš, you yourself wrote about the election result. Wasn't this kamikaze too much of a sacrifice, when you fared the worst of all the five parties that opposed Babiš as part of the coalition?

Now we have to focus on ensuring that the government that is being formed is good for the Czech Republic. And if this succeeds, then it was definitely worth it, because we were really worried that a development like in Hungary is at risk here, where non-governmental media are censored, local governments disobedient to the government are limited, the constitutional court is liquidated and it gets into subjugation of the government, etc. We are glad that we managed to stop this unfortunate development, towards which Mr. Babiš was also heading. And now it's up to us how we handle this chance. But it was definitely so important that I definitely don't regret anything.

What about you personally when you learned the result of the election - what did you think when you saw the numbers? You said to yourself: so what now? Or were you somehow prepared for this eventuality, even if it was probably not entirely expected?

No one was prepared for this, but I took it as a thing that happened, and now I will think for a while about what I will do next. But I definitely don't see it as a tragedy. If it's not life, it's shit. So I wouldn't make too much of it.

Do you have something in mind that you could do now?

We are expecting a baby, so I will spend a few months with my family and then I will make a decision. It will be the third addition, I have two sons.

And the third child will be a son again?

We don't know, we let ourselves be surprised.

Your sister Olga Richterová spoke about the fact that disinformation and lies like that you want to move migrants into people's huts have done a lot of damage to the Pirates. Do you agree with her?

It definitely hurt us, but that's why I'm talking about kamikaze. Mr. Babiš went this way, he said that his goal is to destroy the Pirates, but he forgot that even his voters do not want to destroy the Pirates, but they want a good government. And he lost on it. Of course, it's rough for us right now, but it turns out that those lies don't pay. And I'm glad for that.

New Pirate in the House of Representatives: Šípová's assistant

Ferjenčík's sister Richterová together with Bartoš and the head of the Pirates parliamentary club Jakub Michálek are the only three MPs Pirates who kept their seats. The fourth MP of the Pirates is the new Central Bohemia PirStan candidate Klára Kocmanová. The 28-year-old Pirate from Kutná Hora worked in the past at the Regional Office of the Central Bohemian Region, where she is now the vice-president of the regional pirate cell there.

Kocmanová helped Adéla Šípová in the battle for the Senate and subsequently worked as an assistant to this senator for the Pirate Party. In the parliamentary elections, however, unlike a number of unsuccessful Pirates, she was able to win her own mandate.

"The Babiš era is ending. Unfortunately, things did not go well for the Pirates themselves. Pirates and Pirates now face changes and a lot of work, but we will definitely not give up," she commented on the election results on Twitter.

Profant blames Babiš for failure

Pirates are now looking for reasons why they failed. The topic of clashes with Babiš, misinformation and lies resonates a lot among the Pirates. For some, more than admitting personal responsibility for a botched outcome.

"The unequivocal culprit is the disinformation spread by Mr. Andrej Babiš, the chairman of the ANO movement," says MP Ondřej Profant about the failure of the Pirates. He said this for iRozhlas.cz. "By intensively attacking the Pirates for half a year, a situation arose where part of the voters were afraid and really circled," blames Babiše.

Controversial statement by the Pirates

The question is therefore how much his statement really harmed the Pirates, as well as problems in the "implementation of the campaign" and its dynamics, which Profant also points out. The Pirates also had some strange statements during the campaign.

"Primarily, our campaign was not strong enough to overcome disinformation," says Profant, who himself uttered controversial words in August during a debate on Prague Pride and marriage for all: "The Chamber is full of conservative white frogs and a large part is inclined to fascism and in this situation it is quite difficult to enforce it".

Profant plans to stay in the party since he founded the Pirates. Regarding the post-election negotiations, he noted that it depends on the conditions that will be set, for example, for cooperation with ODS, in order to defend this cooperation. "ODS is a very conservative party and we do not share conservative values ​​with it. We will have to discuss this within the party," Profant pointed out.

At the same time, his pirate colleague František Kopřiva also drew criticism during the campaign finale. The MP unfortunately paused over the decision of the referendum in Berlin, which advised the expropriation of apartments from large developers. However, his tweet was seen by some as evidence that the Pirates would also like to expropriate apartments. "In Berlin, they decided to expropriate apartments, and the heart of every good Pirate melted," said the leader of ANO in Prague, Patrik Nacher, and there were problems in the world.

And the Pirates continued to face insinuations before the elections that they were shooting themselves in the foot with some of their positions and statements.

Aggressive Clip

There were more oddities during the Pirates campaign. In it, PirSTan also played with a music video, similar to what happened in the past, when Bartoš played the accordion in front of the pirate bus and the Pirates shouted: Let us go at them.

Now they have used it - quite unconservatively - in a campaign, after which they complain about the intimidation of the Pirates and the brandishing of the threats of Pirátostan, which Prime Minister Babiš mainly warned against. However, the video did not meet with much understanding. "The war is the same and it doesn't change anymore, enemies swarm and we're already in it. Pirátostan," Ivan Bartoš rapped in the clip with an aggressively tuned song, which received approximately equal positive and negative reviews on YouTube.

Piral Pikal, however, thinks that the Pirates were mainly disinformed. "This is also clearly stated by the various statistics and analyzes of disinformation sources, that it was mainly aimed at us for a long time. During the elections, it got much stronger, which certainly hurt us, both in terms of the election result and in terms of the amount of circling," continues Pikal.

"It is something that harms not only the Pirate Party, but also democracy as a whole, if we as a society do not learn to work with the new media and with the problem that any debate is not about the factual situation and real policies, but it's happening over nonsense and untruths," added Pikal.

Bartoš's wife: There was no escape before that

What is being resolved inside the Pirate Party now? A poll has started, where the Pirates vote on the possible end of their chairman Ivan Bartoš. The ongoing situation is clear - throwing the pirate captain off the bridge is not appropriate. 88% voted against the recall at 1pm on Monday 88% (423 votes), 7% in favor (36 votes) and 5% abstained (22 votes).

Nevertheless, there were a number of insinuations, including insufficient self-reflection of the party leadership or a mistake in the form of the fact that the Pirates went into a coalition with STAN at all.

Bartoš was also defended by his wife Lydie Franka Bartošová during the sometimes heated debate. “Regardless of appeals of all kinds... I still think about it, and it comes from the fact that there was no escape before all this development. Do not join a coalition, they will blame us for our pride and everything bad in the coming years, we could also not form a demo government for a possible victory of Babiš. Maybe not factually, but who cares, right," he states.

"There were mistakes in the campaign, at the same time we caught criticism that we were too anti-women, or not enough, and it was always just on us, not on the coalition. The disinformation efforts had tremendous results, even people on the playground asked me about the migrants, if I wasn't an insider, it would annoy and make me so insecure that I would have to vote for a personality I know rather than a brand that is being questioned. And finally, the different nature of the Pirates and STAN and their electorate, where one is used to electing personalities, the other to respect the order of the elected candidate. We didn't have a chance to circle it, and I don't even think it would help to make fun of the circle," added Bartoš's wife on the pirate forum.

Depose Bartoš immediately after the elections in which the Pirates failed? "I think that it is absolutely obvious from the vote that there is no point in talking about anything like that now," Pikal responded for Blesk.

Pikal: As a coalition, we have a result for government negotiations

Was it a mistake to go into a coalition with STAN? "We will definitely be talking about this for a long time in the party, and I think that the entire presidency can account to the members as part of the election of the presidency, which awaits us at the beginning of January, in accordance with the rules as we have them set. The presidency must be convened within three months of the elections, and preparations are already underway," Pikal pointed out to Blesk Zprávy.

At the same time, they defend the Pirates' participation in government negotiations. "Now, in my opinion, we must proceed in accordance with the coalition agreement that was approved by the national forum, in accordance with the post-election strategy that was approved by the republican committee and which obliges us to discuss participation in the government, because as a coalition we certainly made a sufficient result for this , to participate in that government. As a coalition, we have obligations and opportunities to participate in that negotiation and to make some decent result there as part of the negotiations," added Pikal.

Michálek: A huge debacle

"We shook hands with the Mayors, and the given hand is paid for by the Mayors," assured Jakub Michálek on Monday in CT Pirát. "We will actually participate in those negotiations as a coalition. For us in terms of the number of mandates as the Pirate Party, it is of course a huge shock, a huge debacle, and we will have a hard time recovering from it. But I think we can handle it," believes Michálek.

According to him, the Pirates should have done circular campaigns, issued recommendations to voters and, for example, called on people to circle the first four people on the candidate list. "Why were we circled? I think that we served a bit like a human shield of those democratic forces against Babiš, because Babiš fired all the bullets to shoot at the Pirates and we did not manage to respond adequately to it, nor did we do a campaign that would counter this effect, " thinks.

Lipavský: Joy at the end of Babiš's government

On the other hand, other members of the Pirates are also saying goodbye. Jan Lipavský wrote on Twitter on Monday: "I am happy that after eight years, sooner or later the government of Andrej Babiš will come to an end. Of course, it may still take some time due to the influence of President Miloš Zeman. The winner of the election is TOGETHER, and I congratulate my colleagues from ODS, TOP 09 and KDU-ČSL. We have fewer mandates than we expected, but that's unfortunately life. I believe that the Pirates will continue to be valid members of the new future government coalition."

“I am currently retiring from the House of Representatives, but public life is not over for me. I will continue to work to ensure that our country remains a free, democratic and socially cohesive society. The work of a deputy was a great life experience for me. I met many great friends, and I believe I also did a good job," added Lipaská.

Babiš turned around, the Pirates are not surprised

It was the head of ANO Babiš who did not hide his enthusiasm for the Pirates' failure in Sunday's Chow. "I'm glad I beat them. Totally. Because they are even worse than those who stole here until 2013," claimed Babiš.

Babiš confirmed on Sunday that he has changed his mind and does not want to quit the House even at the moment when he would end up on the opposition bench, even though he rejected the opposition seat before the elections. And even during Saturday's press conference, Babiš referred to the House of Representatives as hell. "Once again, we are faced with the fact that the Prime Minister promised something, and he will not fulfill it," Pikal told Blesku.