Ostrava’s mayor Tomáš Macura has resigned after 8 years at the post after deciding to leave the ANO political party. He didn’t go into the specifics of his decision, but said the party had changed in recent times in ways he felt powerless to influence. It seems likely however that the failed presidential campaign by ANO’s leader Andrej Babiš tipped him over the edge. Babiš’s tried to exploit people’s (understandable) fears about the conflict in Ukraine by claiming his opponent Petr Pavel planned to bring the Czech Republic into the war. The tactic worked for Viktor Orban in Hungary, but Babiš was squashed by Pavel in the second round of voting.
Macura made no secret of the fact that he didn’t vote for Babiš in the first or second round of the elections. Under his leadership, Ostrava took significant steps in its transformation, including the commissioning of international architectural competitions. Macura was a regular at MIPIM in Cannes where he led the city’s attempts to attract new investment.
“When we speak with people and ask them what’s important to them, they say they want a future in the city,” he told me last March. “They want a clean environment, quality public space, quality schools, housing and so on. This is a given in other cities, but it wasn’t for us.”
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