Honestly speaking: Over the weekend, he played a death knell for the ANO movement. But not for Andrej Babiš
How the elections to municipal councils would turn out was quite a mystery, as they have their specifics and are difficult to measure in polls. Results differ noticeably from city to city and one senate electoral district from another, yet we will try to capture the point of the final contest, or who are the winners and losers?
It's Not Enough to Declare Yourself the Winner, You Need to Earn It in the Elections
Although in other elections the winner is usually clear within a ten-second analysis of the number of mandates won, after this election weekend it's more complicated. For example, Karel Havlíček enthusiastically declared himself the winner, and his party leader Andrej Babiš had to temper his enthusiasm at the press conference in a live broadcast.
It is true that in municipal elections the ANO movement received the most votes of all parties, although it is not a party but a movement, but in reality it came in a distant second behind coalitions of candidates. When compared to the previous round of elections, the government hegemon belongs rather in the next paragraph.
A clear success was achieved by Christian Democrat Jan Grolich, who absolutely overwhelmingly won in the Vyškov region and secured for him and his efforts to resuscitate the last living party with pre-November tradition an absolutely crucial Senate seat. He also added a record for the number of votes received in the history of Senate elections. The Christian Democrats in coalition with STAN then won in Brno. For the first time they will have a mayor in the Moravian metropolis, who cheerfully invited everyone into the coalition except for the Sewer movement, that is ANO.
But the real pearl of municipal politics from Labuan is the Prague City Hall, and there Petr Hlaváček and STAN unexpectedly won. The Mayors and Independents party also recorded huge percentage increases in other large cities (besides the mentioned Brno, also for example in Ostrava, Olomouc or Pilsen) and it is now clear who the new leader of the opposition is. This was also underlined by the extraordinary success of STAN candidates in the Senate elections. So it's clear who benefited the most.
Who lost out?
The sour expression on Andrej Babiš's face at the press conference after the elections wasn't fixed even by his most cuddly pet-Havlíček with his hundredth repetition of drivel about victory in the elections. Babiš had his sights set primarily on the Senate, where he could gradually remove the biggest obstacle to his unlimited rule.
Although the media was full of debates about how the ANO movement will improve, since it is only defending one mandate, it may well happen that this single mandate will remain. Not a single ANO movement candidate succeeded in the first round, and except for the candidate in the Karviná district, all those advancing to the second round will be pulling the short end of the stick behind the governing hegemon.
How it will turn out, nobody knows, but if ANO strengthens in the Senate at all, it will be by one or two mandates, which doesn't change the balance of power in the chamber at all. The party's gains have sharply declined in municipal elections in key regional and large district cities (with the exception of Pilsen). This is fundamental because in villages ANO almost exclusively doesn't form its own candidate lists. City coalitions have not yet been formed, but basically nowhere does ANO have such strength that it couldn't be excluded from the governing coalition.
However, so that the governing movement doesn't feel too bad, the "non-victory" is also enjoyed by the main competitor so far in the form of the right-wing ODS. The party, which at its last congress constantly repeated the mantra about how it wants to polish its brand as the once most powerful party in the country, received, in Petr Fiala's words, a clear signal that if it doesn't run in a coalition, it can expect single-digit gains. Therefore, the era of ODS dominance will not return, and this post-November party will most likely also face gradual dissolution into coalition projects.
The Future is Changing
"This weekend marks the beginning of the end for ANO. Of course it will still take time, but it's evident that Babiš can't manage it alone, he's aging, and the movement is only capable of finding such 'personalities' as Hušbauer, Tsoukernik or Absolonová. The government has no chance of fulfilling its promises and centrist voters will be deterred by its coalition partners,"
stated former Finance Minister Ivan Pilip on X network.
**embed:<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="cs" dir="ltr">Tento víkend je začátek konce ANO. Ještě to ovšemže potrvá, ale je evidentní, že Babiš sám to neutáhne, stárne, a hnutí je schopno najít jen takové "osobnosti" jako Hušbauer, Tsoukernik nebo Absolonová. Vláda nemá šanci plnit sliby a středové voliče odradí její koal. partneři.</p>— Ivan Pilip (@ivan_pilip) <a href="https://x.com/ivan_pilip/status/2109154470089072782?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> **
However, the observation hides yet another stumbling block for the billionaire Babiš's movement. Just as he built the movement entirely dependent on his authority, so the movement likely ends as well. As long as it can rely on the sacred aura of its leader, it will still have decent gains, but the disarray in municipal councils suggests that with Babiš's departure from politics, which given his age is not that far off, the party has nothing to build on and the fascination with the anal opening of 1st Deputy Chairman Karel Havlíček is not what he should have learned from his boss.
At the same time, we probably can't expect a voting revolution like in Ústí nad Labem to occur in the next parliamentary elections. Here, Andrej Babiš himself once led the candidate list and achieved a record success, but in the municipal elections the tables turned almost incomprehensibly and a coalition of all known and unknown parties won here 51:16. It's more likely that Andrej Babiš will pull another ace from his sleeve filled with money and marketing and claim another unprecedented electoral triumph. A change in the trend in the composition of municipal councils is certainly not ruled out.
Sources: author's text, commentary, ČT, X, SeznamZprávy, Novinky.cz,
