Hřib received 454 votes from a total of approximately 1,200 members in the Internet voting. In the second round of the election, he defeated former senator Lukáš Wagenknecht, who was supported by 401 members.
Zdeněk Hřib, former mayor of Prague and current deputy mayor for transport, became the new chairman of the Czech Pirate Party. On Saturday, at the meeting of the National Forum in Prague, the members of the party decided by voting. TASR informs about this according to the Novinky.cz server report.
“I would like to thank everyone for their support, I see it as a big commitment, even though we have a lot of work ahead of us. I would like to thank Ivan Bartoš once again, because it was only thanks to him that the Pirates got this far and became the most successful Pirate side,” said Hřib.
The leadership of the Pirates, led by Bartoš, resigned after failure in the regional and senate elections at the end of September. At that time, Bartoš declared that he would no longer apply for the post of chairman. He led the party for 15 years.
Hřib claims that he wants to lead the party temporarily and does not plan to run in next year’s elections to the Chamber of Deputies. According to him, the Pirates should be a liberal center party that will uphold a policy focused on the problems of ordinary people, the portal iDnes.cz added.
Under Bartoš’s leadership, the Pirates got into the Czech and European Parliaments and into the government of current Prime Minister Petr Fiala. They left it to join the opposition when Fiala dismissed Bartoš from the position of Minister for Local Development in September. According to Fial, the reason was the unmanaged digitization of the construction process, which Bartoš was in charge of.
