Czech Senate Runoff Leaves Babiš's ANO Without a Single Seat as STAN and ODS Keep the Opposition in Charge
All 13 ANO candidates lost in the second round on Saturday, while the Mayors movement and the Civic Democrats won most of the 27 contested seats and the Pirates lost their last one.
Saturday, October 17, 2026/2 min read
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš's ANO movement went into the Czech Senate runoff on Saturday with 13 candidates and came out with none elected. The second round, held in 22 districts and closed at 2 p.m., left the opposition parties comfortably in control of the upper house, according to Around Prague.
One third of the 81-seat Senate was up for election. Five seats were decided a week earlier in the first round, in Děčín, Trutnov, Vyškov, Rychnov nad Kněžnou and Strakonice, per Expats.cz, which said the opposition majority was already secure after the first round. Of the 27 senators whose terms expired, 23 sought re-election; four won outright, 15 advanced to the runoff and four incumbents were eliminated.
Who won the Czech Senate runoff?
The Mayors and Independents movement, known as STAN, won the vote for the first time in six years, according to Radio Prague International. It elected 10 of its 14 candidates, two of them in the first round. The Civic Democrats (ODS) won seven seats while defending five, and Around Prague said almost all of their runoff candidates succeeded, the exception being Dagmar Pecková in Prague 9.
The Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) kept all three seats they were defending, and TOP 09 kept both of its seats. Jakub Navařík of ODS, 40, became the youngest man ever elected to the Senate.
The field in the runoff was wide. Expats.cz counted 12 runoff candidates from the Mayors movement, nine from ODS and two from KDU-ČSL, with eight other parties or movements fielding one nominee each, among them TOP 09, the Pirates and SEN 21.
Why did ANO and the Pirates lose?
ANO was defending a single seat, and all 13 of its runoff candidates were beaten as the other parties again lined up against it. Babiš had predicted exactly that before the vote, saying "everyone will unite against us." The Pirates lost their Senate representation altogether after their only runoff candidate failed to hold her seat, Radio Prague reported.
The races carried personal stories too. Martin Půta of the Mayors movement beat ANO's Jitka Volfová in Česká Lípa, a result that Around Prague singled out among the notable contests.
What happens to the Senate now?
The 54 senators who were not up for election keep full voting rights until the new members take their oath, which is expected in mid-November after the period for legal challenges.
Turnout in the second round was roughly a fifth of eligible voters, still the highest for a Senate runoff since 2010. For Babiš, the result is a pointed rebuke in a chamber his party has never controlled, and the question now is whether the same anti-ANO coalition can hold together in votes that matter more.
Published in The Outspoken Digest
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