TOP 09 Leadership Gets Younger. Matěj Ondřej Havel Elected Party Chairman

Matěj Ondřej Havel received a strong mandate from the delegates, winning 120 out of 171 votes. In his nomination speech, he urged the new leadership to focus on strengthening TOP 09’s profile as a party of strong experts in areas such as sound public finances, a clearly formulated foreign policy, a demythologized environmental policy, a well-designed education policy, and more.

He also warned against growing efforts to undermine the democratic principles of the country and called for a strong defense, including through the activation of civil society: “We will most likely soon face far more sophisticated efforts than before to weaken freedom of speech and the free dissemination of information—through attempts to dominate and, if necessary, restrict independent public media.”

“There is once again a great effort to convince people not to care about public affairs. Indifference and disengagement from public life—from the actions of the government, Parliament and so on—provide fertile ground for quietly dismantling freedom slice by slice. That will be risky for the entire country, which is why our role in Parliament is irreplaceable,” Havel continued. “TOP 09 has proven many times in the past that it can be a firm and visible beacon of values during such storms, and it will have to prove that again now.”

Until now, Havel has served as a Vice-Chairman of TOP 09, and in the outgoing government he was also Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies’ Committee on Education, where he worked to reform the education system, encourage innovation in teaching, and ensure high-quality preparation for future teachers. He is himself a former educator, having worked as a teacher and later as the Principal of the J. K. Tyl Grammar School in Hradec Králové. He is expected to continue leading the Education Committee after the autumn elections, in which he once again succeeded as a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies.

Member of Parliament and former party chairman Jiří Pospíšil, in line with his earlier statements, declined the nomination for the post of TOP 09 chairman for personal reasons. During the congress, he was therefore invited to run for First Vice-Chairman, a nomination he accepted and was subsequently elected with 110 votes.

He too used his nomination speech to urge active work in response to the post-election political situation in the country. “Those who are in power are questioning the post-1989 development and are sympathetic to Putin’s Russia,” he said. “We have no time to lick our wounds after losing the elections.”

The party leadership became younger after the congress—three out of the four Vice-Chair positions changed hands. The new faces in the leadership are Ondřej Müller, TOP 09’s regional manager and a regional representative in Pardubice, Lukáš Otys, the regional chairman of TOP 09 in the Karlovy Vary Region and a former vice-chairman, and Kateřina Pastorková. Marek Ženíšek, the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation and one of the party’s founding members, defended his mandate.

The congress also marked the official farewell to outgoing Chairwoman Markéta Pekarová Adamová, who led the party for the past six years and did not seek re-election.

“Do not return to the past as if it were a cure-all—every return to our roots is merely plucking at the strings of nostalgia. Look much more firmly ahead,” Pekarová Adamová advised party members at the opening of the congress. “That does not mean we should not learn from the past, or that we should ignore it. But the world around us is changing very quickly, and we must not stagnate.”