The Czech governing movement ANO failed to win any of its 13 second-round contests in the Senate election, leaving opposition parties in control of the upper chamber after voters filled 27 seats. The result was a sharp setback for Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s party, but it does not amount to a national parliamentary verdict: the vote covered only one-third of the Senate, and the lower house remains the country’s principal legislative chamber.
A shutout in the runoffs
The final round took place on Friday and Saturday, 16 and 17 October. In 22 districts, the two leading candidates from the first round faced each other; five senators had already been elected outright after crossing the required threshold in the opening round. ANO advanced 13 candidates to the runoffs and lost each contest. The movement had been defending one Senate seat, in Karviná, and its defeat there means it also surrendered that mandate.
Parties and candidates aligned with the opposition won most of the contested places, though the result was not simply a contest between two national blocs. The Mayors and Independents movement and regional allies secured ten seats across the election, including two first-round victories. The Civic Democrats won seven. Other mandates went to Christian Democrats, TOP 09, local candidates and political groupings whose eventual Senate affiliations may differ from their election labels.
That distinction matters when interpreting the chamber’s balance. Candidates can run under joint nominations or local labels, and senators organise into groups after election. Opposition parties already held a majority before the vote. The latest outcome preserved that advantage rather than creating it from scratch; the precise size and composition of caucuses can still depend on individual senators’ affiliations.
Local contests shaped the outcome
Several races showed how a second round can overturn a first-round lead. In Česká Lípa, regional governor Martin Půta defeated ANO candidate Jitka Volfová after she had led in the opening vote. In Karviná, Petr Kazík, a local candidate, beat the governing party’s nominee in the seat ANO had been defending. In Hradec Králové, Civic Democrat Zuzana Ceralová Petrofová defeated former minister Martin Dvořák.
These head-to-head contests reward a candidate who can attract supporters of eliminated rivals, not only those who backed them initially. ANO’s own leader had warned before the vote that voters from other parties might unite against his candidates in runoffs. The final pattern was consistent with that vulnerability, although individual district results had distinct local dynamics and should not be reduced to a single national explanation.
The election also produced uneven changes for parties that won seats. The Mayors movement topped the overall tally but had more mandates to defend than ANO and expected its own Senate group to remain broadly level. The Civic Democrats, by contrast, improved on their previous position by winning seven seats after defending five. The Pirates failed to secure a direct Senate seat, while a number of independent or locally rooted candidates added to the chamber’s varied composition.
Turnout and limits of the result
Turnout in the second round was 21.12 per cent, with 475,714 voters participating, according to the published result breakdown. That low participation is typical of the two-round Senate contest and is an important limit on claims about the scale of public opinion behind the outcome. The vote is evidence of how participating voters chose in these districts, not a referendum on the government by the entire electorate.
The Senate still matters. It reviews legislation, participates in constitutional changes and approves appointments to the Constitutional Court. It can scrutinise or delay bills, although the lower house can override Senate vetoes in many ordinary legislative cases. The chamber’s composition is therefore consequential, but it does not directly determine who governs or replace a general election.
For the governing coalition, the immediate political message is that ANO’s strength in national polling did not translate into wins in the decisive Senate contests. Yet the result alone does not establish why voters made their choices, nor does it predict the next lower-house election. It leaves opposition forces with a continued institutional counterweight and gives the new senators their own local mandates. The next test will be how those elected members organise, and whether their cooperation holds when the Senate considers specific legislation.
