Jurečka gave himself an ultimatum, he remains the chairman for now

Marian Jurečka remains the chairman of the KDU-ČSL. He only narrowly withstood pressure from his party, in which some rank-and-file members called for his resignation. On the one hand, they were annoyed by Jureček’s behavior regarding the Christmas party at the time of the tragedy at the philosophy faculty, and on the other hand, the party’s low preferences.

He remains in office until the election convention of the KDU-ČSL, which will take place in October. Of the 84 members of the national conference, 46 delegates supported Jurečka, which is only three more votes than he needed. It is therefore a very weak mandate when only 55 percent of people from the wider management trust the chairman.

There were 26 members against Jureček and 12 abstained from voting. When leaving the nearly five-hour meeting, many folk people made fun of themselves: The result is not even our classic folk maybe, this is simply nothing. Which can also be interpreted as the fact that KDU-ČSL is simply a “calm force” that never makes decisions with a hot head in emotions.

They were upset that the storm of discontent that had been raised by members in the regions had finally died down. Why? In the end, the opinion that Marian Jurečka is a good and hardworking minister prevailed in the speeches of the delegates at the meeting.

Photo: Michal Turek, Seznam Zpravy

The People’s Party does not plan to change the leadership until autumn.

“If we fail to reverse the trend of preferences, I will not run and defend the post of chairman at the congress,” promised Jurečka. The October convention will be held after three elections – European, Senate and regional.

At Friday’s meeting, none of the proposals prepared by the former head of the KDU-ČSL Pavel Bělobrádek – and in recent weeks a vocal critic of Jurečko’s – passed. “The fish always stinks from the head,” he said of his successor at the head of the party.

He suggested that Jurečka resign from the post of chairman immediately, or that he at least undertake not to run again. But none of it passed, not even the proposal to hold an electoral convention in June.

Photo: Michal Turek, Seznam Zpravy

Pavel Bělobárdek (in a white shirt) did not implement his proposals.

Conflict of generations

It is now clear that the battle will be fought until October as to which direction KDU-ČSL should go. In recent months, the dispute between the older and younger generations has been escalating in the party about how much the People’s Party should be conservative and how far they should step in a modern direction.

After all, this is also why two possible candidates for the post of chairman faced off at Friday’s meeting of the national conference.

South Moravian Governor Jan Grolich proposed to modernize the party’s policy so that it would also attract people under the age of forty. “Let’s do it even at the cost of maybe upsetting the older members.”

For this, he received criticism from the vice-chairman of the KDU-ČSL, Jan Bartošek, according to whom he insulted all senior members of the party and voters. “We set out to hunt voters in liberal green waters that are not our own and where it is already tight. A return to authentic popular politics will help,” he proposed his recipe for salvation.

Photo: Milan Mottl

People Jan Bartošek.

The people are waiting for hot months of searching for where to go. A warning for them can be the fate of the social democrats, who could not agree for so long whether they are traditional or modern left, until they lost voters.