Final Word from Thursday, August 27, 2026
First Vice Chair Tomáš Portlík of ODS, who is his party's candidate for Prague mayor, wants to get things done at city hall and would probably be best able to do this in a grand coalition with ANO. But the billionaires and other forces behind STAN, Praha sobě and the Pirates are putting pressure on him to shun ANO and to form another broad coalition after the Oct. elections. Portlík's response was to tell Deník that he doesn't want a coalition at Prague city hall with Andrej Babiš. Instead, Portlík started talking about an even broader coalition than the current one and about handpicking people from all the main parties, including ANO. But why would Babiš agree to this? He understands that the biggest threat to ANO are the people behind STAN, Praha sobě and the Pirates. The same in fact applies to ODS, but its leadership is slow to catch on to this. How it decides at Prague city hall will likely determine whether ODS is able to recapture the chief opposition role in the country or permanently cedes it to STAN. [ municipal ]
Glossary of difficult words
grand coalition - a coalition of the two largest political parties of opposing ideologies;
to shun - persistently to avoid, ignore or reject (someone or something) due to antipathy or caution;
to handpick - to select carefully with a particular purpose in mind;
to be slow to catch on to something - to be slow to understand, realize or notice a fact, situation, joke or a new trend;
to cede - to give up (power or territory).