Political Crisis in Czechia: Government Reshuffle Announced

The parliamentary majority in the Czech government is collapsing following the decision by the Pirates, a pro-European centrist party, to withdraw from the coalition led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala. The Pirates (Czech: Česká pirátská strana – Piráti) is a Czech political party founded in 2009. The main themes supported by the party are direct democracy, copyright reform, and freedom of information. The party is a member of Pirate Parties International and the European Pirate Party.

Late Monday night, September 30, the Pirates party announced that its members had “voted to leave the government coalition” in protest of Prime Minister Fiala’s decision to dismiss Pirates leader Ivan Bartosz (pictured) from his post as development minister, citing “poor management of the implementation of the digital construction permit system.”

As soon as Czech President Petr Pavel signed the letter dismissing Bartosz, two other ministers belonging to the Pirates, including Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, one of Ukraine’s main supporters, resigned. Although the Pirates had three ministers, the party has only four seats in the Czech parliament, and their withdrawal from the executive branch would still allow Fiala’s government to retain a majority in the Chamber of Deputies with 104 members out of 200 total seats.

As the Czech press wrote on Tuesday, “Fiala’s decision to dismiss Bartosz followed the disappointing results obtained by government parties in regional and senate elections held in September.” After a minor political earthquake, Fiala wrote on X social network (formerly Twitter) that he “wants to finalize the personnel changes in the government by the end of next week.”