Final Word from Monday, May 27, 2019

The street has spoken in a thunder. Or at least that's one way to interpret the results of the EU elections. The parties represented at the anti-government protests (ODS, Pirates, TOP 09/STAN, KDU-ČSL) won a majority of 12 of the CR's 21 seats in the EU Parliament and a plurality of 47.38% of the vote. That's 15.88 percentage points better than the pre-election CVVM poll we cited last Wed. It gave these parties just 31.5%. When ČSSD's 8.5% poll rating was included along with the anti-government parties, the opposition had 40.0% in the CVVM survey, to 43.0% for ANO-SPD-KSČM. By failing to pass the 5% mark in the actual vote and winning just 3.95%, ČSSD helped swing Andrej Babiš et al. into the minority. Part of the credit goes to ČSSD's kamikazes - Bohuslav Sobotka, Petr Dolínek and Josef Bernard. They sacrificed themselves and perhaps the mid-term prospects of their party to torpedo Babiš's ship. They should be honored with thunderous applause at tomorrow's protests. [ Czech Repubic demonstrations Million Moments for Democracy European Union ]