<story><title>Pirate Party Leader to Be Prague mayor</title><url>http://praguemonitor.com/2018/10/26/pirate-zden%C4%9Bk-h%C5%99ib-be-prague-mayor</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TomMarius</author><text>Yes, I&amp;#x27;m Czech living in Prague. Last 4 years the Prague local government was led by ANO, the party led by StB (communist secret police) member billionaire Andrej Babis. Their campaign was extremely strong then and they won - today Prague is in horrendous state, bridges are &lt;i&gt;literally&lt;/i&gt; falling down (2 more just this week), traffic is worse (extremely worse!) than ever due to idiotically planned long roadworks that have to be soon redone and zero construction of much needed infrastructure, the public transport is way worse than it was, taxi mafia is still the same, they caused a huge housing bubble... And on top of that Krnacova calls Prague people who don&amp;#x27;t like it &amp;quot;whiners&amp;quot;, repeatedly and on purpose - she even recently confirmed that it&amp;#x27;s exactly what she wanted to say.&lt;p&gt;The major implication for the whole country is that at least Prague citizens are absolutely fed up with ANO - that is important because they dominated the whole country politics for the last 2 periods. Today there are 2 other major parties - ODS (Občansko-demokratická strana, Civic Democracy Party) and the Pirate party. These are the three winners of the recent parliament vote - parliament politics affect local politics a lot in the Czech Republic. If you don&amp;#x27;t want to vote ANO then you vote ODS if you&amp;#x27;re more on the right (as in free market) and the Pirate party if you&amp;#x27;re more on the left. There are basically no other options - the remaining &amp;quot;major&amp;quot; (bigger than others but has almost no influence) party in the country is a racist one. Other previously major parties such as ČSSD (social democracy), KDU-ČSL (the Roman-Catholics) and KSČM (literal communists) have fallen down significantly over last 2 periods, most probably because of their cooperation with ANO.&lt;p&gt;Pirates have a good track record as far as local politics go, but it&amp;#x27;s a relatively new party and they only participated in smaller cities&amp;#x2F;villages so far (on top of their recent entry to parliament). This person is completely unknown. Let&amp;#x27;s see.</text></item><item><author>jxub</author><text>Any Czech person around to chim in and shed some light on the implications?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>saiya-jin</author><text>Basically the problem of whole east europe (although we like to call ourselves central europe) - too much crap left over communist rule and twisted mentality (ie everybody for themselves, screw the rest). Extremely rich individuals openly influencing politics, laughing at the cameras and enjoying being in spotlight.&lt;p&gt;Prague is a beautiful city to visit, be it for a weekend or a week. But living there long term sucks - most of the Prague apart from historical centre is properly fugly, as soviet-style architecture is still all over the place, cramped high rise residential areas with high criminality, little nature around (major mountains are &amp;gt; 500km away, sea even further), Czech love to constantly complain and moan about almost everything (it really gets to you after some time). Gap between rich (ie IT workers, managers) and rest of population is big and widening, people constantly hate politics but vote an a-hole after a-hole for last 20 years. So rich often discuss how to shield themselves financially from the rest of country, politics and economy as much as possible - not an indication of paradise. Half of the country is xenophobic and&amp;#x2F;or racist (although ie Roma question is a complex one).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve worked there for couple of years, to be successful in IT was trivial due to constant lack of senior people, from what I heard its even worse now due to massive off&amp;#x2F;near shoring of multinationals. When looking back, moving away was one of the best decisions of my life and major step up in quality of life.&lt;p&gt;Of course there are positive aspects, just like everywhere. Professionals (I can judge IT) are smart and work hard, beer is the best there is (for me) and as mentioned its a great starting point for career. There are people who consider it the best place for them. Interestingly, none I know in this category lived abroad for longer to properly compare.</text></comment>
<story><title>Pirate Party Leader to Be Prague mayor</title><url>http://praguemonitor.com/2018/10/26/pirate-zden%C4%9Bk-h%C5%99ib-be-prague-mayor</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TomMarius</author><text>Yes, I&amp;#x27;m Czech living in Prague. Last 4 years the Prague local government was led by ANO, the party led by StB (communist secret police) member billionaire Andrej Babis. Their campaign was extremely strong then and they won - today Prague is in horrendous state, bridges are &lt;i&gt;literally&lt;/i&gt; falling down (2 more just this week), traffic is worse (extremely worse!) than ever due to idiotically planned long roadworks that have to be soon redone and zero construction of much needed infrastructure, the public transport is way worse than it was, taxi mafia is still the same, they caused a huge housing bubble... And on top of that Krnacova calls Prague people who don&amp;#x27;t like it &amp;quot;whiners&amp;quot;, repeatedly and on purpose - she even recently confirmed that it&amp;#x27;s exactly what she wanted to say.&lt;p&gt;The major implication for the whole country is that at least Prague citizens are absolutely fed up with ANO - that is important because they dominated the whole country politics for the last 2 periods. Today there are 2 other major parties - ODS (Občansko-demokratická strana, Civic Democracy Party) and the Pirate party. These are the three winners of the recent parliament vote - parliament politics affect local politics a lot in the Czech Republic. If you don&amp;#x27;t want to vote ANO then you vote ODS if you&amp;#x27;re more on the right (as in free market) and the Pirate party if you&amp;#x27;re more on the left. There are basically no other options - the remaining &amp;quot;major&amp;quot; (bigger than others but has almost no influence) party in the country is a racist one. Other previously major parties such as ČSSD (social democracy), KDU-ČSL (the Roman-Catholics) and KSČM (literal communists) have fallen down significantly over last 2 periods, most probably because of their cooperation with ANO.&lt;p&gt;Pirates have a good track record as far as local politics go, but it&amp;#x27;s a relatively new party and they only participated in smaller cities&amp;#x2F;villages so far (on top of their recent entry to parliament). This person is completely unknown. Let&amp;#x27;s see.</text></item><item><author>jxub</author><text>Any Czech person around to chim in and shed some light on the implications?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>runn1ng</author><text>Taxi mafia is the only thing I don&amp;#x27;t agree with. Uber shaked that up pretty well.</text></comment>