Ostrava mayor accuses former party of trying to oust him from office

Tomáš Macura, who is the current Mayor of Ostrava, has accused his former party ANO of pressuring him to resign from office, Czech Television reported on Thursday. Mr. Macura said that party manager Jan Richter was headed to Ostrava with the aim of “persuading” members of the local ANO representatives club that the mayor needed to be removed. The Governor of the Moravian-Silesian Region, Ivo Vondrák, who resigned as ANO’s deputy chairman last week, has said that he feels the same pressure.

Both men didn’t support ANO leader Andrej Babiš when he ran for the office of president last month, instead supporting the ultimate winner, Petr Pavel, and they have also criticised the direction in which the party is headed. ANO deputy chairman and shadow cabinet leader Karel Havlíček accused both men of being in the grip of conspiracy theories.