The mayor is one of the traditional and most visible authorities of the municipality. Although he has statutory powers, the inhabitants of the municipality sometimes have no idea what all is within his competence. There may be situations where citizens want the mayor to resolve neighbourly disputes because he is the one who is supposed to "take care" of the citizens. The mayor does not have fixed working hours, and although he acts as a non-executive in some municipalities, he remains mayor 24 hours a day. This is also the reason why, especially in smaller municipalities, almost no one wants to hold the position. The same person then remains mayor for several terms.
The main purpose of this text is to present the reasons that could have led to the mayoral change - the mayor did not want to continue? Voters were dissatisfied with his work and preferred other groups? The councillors were unhappy with the mayor and despite "winning" the election they "booted" him out and elected another mayor at the meeting? Was it a communal issue that "undermined the mayor's chair" or did personal disputes play a role?
The author Michal Frank tried to answer these questions in interviews with representatives of ten selected municipalities in the Pardubice and South Moravia regions. In each municipality, he interviewed the current and former mayor, as well as councillors. The total number of interviews reached 32 in the ten municipalities.
A total of 13 mayoral replacements took place in ten municipalities in the Pardubice and South Moravia Regions after the 2014 and 2018 elections. The respondents' statements showed that the reasons were either based on their own decisions, which were motivated by age, personal/family reasons, unwillingness to continue due to the demands, politicization of the municipality, atmosphere and relations in the council. Or the replacement was indirectly decided by the electorate through their vote, where they ensured the victory or majority of a group or coalition that may (may not) have stood in opposition to the incumbent mayor.
The research on a sample of ten municipalities certainly cannot and should not be generalized to all municipalities in the Czech Republic, of which there are over 6200. However, the responses of the stakeholders may indicate a trend in the thinking and behaviour of mayors, councillors and, in theory, voters.
The unabridged version of the policy paper is available here:
