The Pirate Party, which did badly in last weekend's regional autonomy and partial Senate elections, will remain in the Czech government coalition, party leader Ivan Bartos said Tuesday in Prague after meeting with Prime Minister Petr Fiala. It turned out later: But the party leader is leaving the government.
“There will be no change in our role in the government,” the outgoing party leader told reporters after the hour-long hearing. But shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Peter Fiala announced that he would recommend to the head of state that Ivan Bartos be removed from his government posts.
“In government, Ivan Bartos is responsible for digitizing the public sector. He has not done this task, even though it is a key issue for the government.
“I will recommend to President Petr Pavel to replace Ivan Bartos as of September 30,” Petr Fiala said at his extraordinary press conference.
Until now, the pirates had 96 representatives in the 13 regional municipal councils, but after the elections their number was reduced to three. In the partial Senate elections, none of the pirate candidates made it to the second round.
Pirate Party leader Ivan Bartos, along with the entire leadership, resigned on Monday after the election failure. The renewal congress had already been held in early November. Bartos also announced that he would no longer run for president.
The Pirate Party has three ministers in the five-party government: Ivan Bartos is deputy prime minister and minister of regional development, and Pirate Party politician Jan Lipavský also runs the foreign ministry.
In his post on social network X, Jakub Michalek, on behalf of the four Pirate Party representatives in the House of Representatives, wrote that the Pirate Party takes over “the tasks assigned to it in the last year of government and responsibility for their actions.”
