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The opposition ANO party of former prime minister Andrej Babiš has won a resounding victory in the regional elections, winning in 10 out of 13 regions where voting took place. It secured altogether 292 seats on regional councils.

The ruling Civic Democrats secured 106 seats, the Mayors and Independents got 73. The Christian Democrats won 49 seats, the opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy Party got 32 and TOP 09 won 16 seats. Twenty regional seats went to the Mayors for Liberec, who are affiliated with the Mayors and Independents at the national level.

The Pirate Party of the ruling coalition took a beating, gaining a mere three seats on regional councils.

Among the parties outside of the Chamber of Deputies, the Communist Party secured 32 seats on regional councils, the Social Democrats won 13 and regional grouping PRO seven.

Compared to the election results four years ago, ANO gained the most, winning an additional 114 regional representatives. The Communist Party gained an additional 19 seats, while the Civic Democrats got 7 more.

Five senators were elected in the first round of elections, the most since the establishment of the upper house of Parliament. They are:  Jiří Čunek (Christian Democrats) who defended his mandate in the Vsetín region, Petr Vícha (Social Democrats) in the Karviná region and Pavel Fischer (TOP 09) in Prague 12.  Jana Mračková Vildumetzová was elected senator for Sokolov and Martin Bednář (ANO) for Ostrava, who defeated the incumbent senator Leopold Sulovský.

The two strongest candidates who got under 50 percent of votes will take part in run-off elections next weekend.

Voting has ended in Czechia’s regional and Senate elections. Polling stations closed at 2pm on Saturday and preliminary results are expected in the early evening.

The turnout in the elections varied in the different regions, from 1 percent to 40 percent of the electorate, according to information provided to the CTK news agency by election commissions.

There was a very low turnout in many of the hardest-hit municipalities, with some exceptions. In the town of Krnov, which was severely damaged by floods, only about a tenth of voters came to cast their ballot. On the other hand, in Opava, which also sustained serious damage, the turnout was as high as 40 percent.

In some places, voter turnout was even higher than at the same time during the last regional elections, while in others it was lower.

In the 2020 regional elections voter turnout was 37.9 percent. In the last Senate elections in 2022, 42.6 percent of voters cast their ballot.

Czechs cast their ballot in elections to regional councils in 13 regions, exempting Prague, and elections to a third of the Senate, which take place every six years.

Parties, movements or coalitions must reach a threshold of five per cent to get seats on regional councils. Within each constituency, seats are allocated by a modified proportional electoral system by the D'Hondt method.

In the Senate elections, 169 candidates are contesting 27 seats in the upper chamber.  A second round of voting in the Senate elections will take place next weekend for contestants who fail to win more that 50 percent of the vote, with the two candidates with the highest number of votes from the first round advancing to the second.

The regional elections, in which the opposition party ANO is seeking to defend its victory from four years ago, are seen as a key test of the party’s popularity ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.

Meanwhile, the ruling Civic Democratic Party is aiming to retain its position as the strongest faction in the Senate, and defend its three governor posts in the regions.

A flash poll conducted by the STEM agency for Prima CNN has indicated that the majority of Czechs are satisfied with the government’s response to the floods. Seventeen percent of respondents said the government responded “very well”, 43 percent said it did “relatively well”. Twenty-five percent of respondents said the government’s response was “inadequate” and 15 percent of respondents rated it as “poor”. Regional governments got high praise, with 89 percent of respondents saying they had performed well or very well.