Parliamentary elections were held in the Czech Republic on 3 and 4 October 2025, to elect all 200 members of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Czech Parliament. The incumbent centre-right government of Petr Fiala was defeated after one term, with the populist ANO led by former prime minister Andrej Babiš returning to power as the largest party in parliament. The parties that formed the previous government lost their majority but performed better than polling suggested, winning 92 seats after being projected to win only 62–70 seats. ANO also performed better than expected, while the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) performed worse than expected based on polling. The left-conservative Stačilo! failed to enter Parliament. Babiš went on to form a coalition government with SPD and another right-wing party, Motorists for Themselves (AUTO). He was appointed prime minister for a second time on 9 December.

The main issues in the election were the economy, inflation, foreign policy and defence spending. The 2025 election marked the first time that mail-in voting was permitted for citizens living or stationed abroad.

Background

2021 election +Composition of the Chamber of DeputiesPartySeats+/– (vs 2017) ANO 201172−6 Civic Democratic Party34+9 Mayors and Independents33+27 KDU-ČSL23+13 Freedom and Direct Democracy20−2 TOP 0914+7 Czech Pirate Party4−18

The 2021 parliamentary elections saw the conservative alliance Spolu (consisting of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), KDU-ČSL and TOP 09) finish first with 27.8% of the vote. ANO 2011 finished second and liberal alliance Pirates and Mayors third. Freedom and Direct Democracy was the only other party to win seats. Spolu formed a government with Pirates and Mayors with ODS leader Petr Fiala as Prime Minister.

Soon after the 2021 elections, the leader of the Mayors and Independents, Vít Rakušan, said that his party would run in the next elections as a single party rather than continue their alliance with the Pirate Party. According to internal Pirate Party analysis, the Mayors violated their joint agreement by asking their voters to give their candidates preference votes on the joint list, which resulted in just four Pirate MPs being elected.

2024 European Parliament election

The 2024 European Parliament election saw losses for the ruling parties, as the Czech Pirate Party lost two of its three seats, and both the Civic Democrats and KDU-ČSL lost one MEP each. TOP 09 retained both its mandates and Mayors and Independents gained one, resulting in a net loss of three seats for the ruling coalition.

Among the parliamentary opposition, ANO 2011 gained one mandate compared to the previous election, and SPD lost one, just passing the parliamentary threshold. Most of the gains went to populist extra-parliamentary parties, with two MEPs each won by Stačilo! and the right-wing populist Přísaha and Motorists, whose leader Filip Turek had faced Neo-Nazism allegations just days before the election. The election also saw the worst result ever for Social Democracy, which won just 1.8% of the vote, far below the threshold.

2024 regional and Senate elections

The 2024 Czech regional elections saw a near-total wipeout for the Pirate Party, the smallest party in the government coalition, which surpassed the threshold in just one out of 13 contested regions and lost all but four councillors nationwide. This led to the resignation of the party leadership and the party's departure from the Fiala cabinet. The election was also successful for the Stačilo! coalition, which entered 12 out of 13 regional assemblies, winning 40 councillors. Pirate Party departure from the Fiala Government Following the underwhelming results in the regional elections, several regional branches of the Pirate Party called for the resignation of the national leadership, led by Ivan Bartoš, who said that he would respect the results of an internal referendum on that matter; however, there were few calls to leave the Fiala Cabinet.

A few days later, Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that he would propose the dismissal of Bartoš as Minister of Regional Development and Deputy Prime Minister for Digitalisation, due to Bartoš's failure to roll out the digitalisation of construction permits. Fiala asked the Pirate Party to propose a new candidate for Minister of Regional Development. This decision came as a surprise to Bartoš and the Pirate Party leadership. Bartoš stated that he had a meeting with Fiala earlier that day, where his dismissal had not been mentioned, and that he learned about his dismissal through a telephone call. The rest of the Pirate Party leadership expressed anger at not having been consulted first, as required by the coalition agreement.

Fiala later confirmed that he had announced his decision to Bartoš through a call. He said he hoped the Pirates would remain in the government, and that he had not broken the coalition agreement, as the whole Pirate's leadership resigned and remained as caretaker leadership until new leadership elections could be held. Pirate members then called for an internal referendum on leaving the government, which was supported by an overwhelming majority of members. The remaining Pirate ministers subsequently submitted their resignations. However, Fiala did not accept the resignation of Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský, who was asked to finish his term as an independent, as a joint nominee of all four remaining coalition parties.

Bitcoin scandal

The 2025 Czech government Bitcoin scandal, which arose after it became public that the Ministry of Justice had accepted a large Bitcoin donation from criminal , became a topic of the election campaign. The controversy led to the resignation of Justice Minister Pavel Blažek, who approved the donation without verifying its origin, sparking allegations of potential money laundering.

Electoral system The Constitution of the Czech Republic stipulates that an election to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Parliament, must be held every four years. The executive government is answerable to the Chamber of Deputies and remains in power only as long as it commands the confidence of the majority of its members. Article 19(1) of the Constitution states that any citizen of the Czech Republic over the age of 21 years old is eligible to serve as a Member of Parliament. All 200 deputies are proportionally elected on open lists in 14 electoral regions, which follow the borders of the 13 Czech regions and the capital city of Prague. Seats are distributed to the regions based on the number of valid votes in each region. Mandates are assigned using the largest remainder method, using the Imperiali quota in the first round and the Hagenbach-Bischoff quota in the second round. In the first round, mandates are divided between each region. Seats not assigned in the first round are then transferred to a national second round, where the sum of parties' remaining votes from all regions are used. To be eligible for seats, a single party must earn at least 5% of the national vote, a coalition of two parties needs 8%, and a coalition of three or more parties requires 11%, unless only one group makes it into the Chamber.

Postal voting For first time in Czech history, citizens living abroad will be able to vote via mail-in voting, following an amendment to the electoral law in 2024. Several media sources, including Seznam Zprávy and e15, noted that the number of citizens registered for postal voting was far lower than the original estimates from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Non-coalitions Before the election, three candidate lists (the Stačilo! alliance; the joint list of the Pirates and Greens; and the joint list of SPD, Tricolour, PRO and Svobodní) were accused of creating "non-coalitions", as they registered as single party lists rather than coalitions in order to pass a lower electoral threshold. This practice was criticised by some other parties, political analysts from Seznam Zprávy and Reflex, and academics from the Charles University, who suggested that these "non-coalitions" were circumventing the electoral law.

Campaign

Pre-campaign period and cooperation agreements

On 8 February 2023, Babiš announced he would limit his role within ANO. He would remain as an MP and the leader of the party, while Karel Havlíček and Alena Schillerová would become the primary faces of the party, with Havlíček becoming leader of the shadow cabinet. Babiš described Havlíček as a future prime minister of the Czech Republic.

On 21 March 2025, SPD, Svobodní, Tricolour and PRO signed a memorandum agreeing to cooperate in the 2025 parliamentary election on the SPD candidate list. In July, PRO threatened to leave the joint list, citing insufficient representation of its candidates on the electoral lists, and floated the idea of joining Stačilo! instead. They later decided to remain on the SPD list. It was subsequently confirmed that each of the smaller parties had only two candidates across all the regional lists (albeit all in the top three candidates in their respective regions), with the rest of the places taken by SPD candidates. Svobodní voiced their disappointment at this arrangement, claiming that "there was not enough time to put together fairer lists", but that "the basic goals are met".

Stačilo! announced its regional leaders in March 2025 at a press conference in Ostrava. The national leader was designated as MEP and KSČM leader Kateřina Konečná, who stated that she would resign her seat in the European Parliament if elected to the Chamber of Deputies. In the Central Bohemian Region, the list was led by former MEP Jana Bobošíková, in the South Moravian Region by blogger Daniel Sterzik, in the Pardubice Region by Roman Roun, and in the Liberec Region by former Communist Party MP .

On 23 June, the Pirates and the Greens announced that 30 Green candidates would be included on Pirate Party candidate lists in eight regions, with the Greens' co-leader running in Prague. On 17 July, Stačilo! and SOCDEM reached an agreement which would see the Social Democrats endorsing the coalition's manifesto and their candidates running on the Stačilo! list. Jana Maláčová led the list in Prague, Jiří Nedvěd in the Karlovy Vary Region, and Lubomír Zaorálek took the second spot on the list in the Moravian-Silesian Region. Under the agreement, SOCDEM would be represented by two candidates on each regional list. This decision triggered a backlash from SOCDEM figures and members, with a substantial drop in membership reportedly linked to the agreement.

Lawsuits against non-coalitions Volt argued that SPD and Stačilo!'s non-coalitions circumvented the higher threshold in place for coalitions, and prepared to file a lawsuit. They later confirmed that they would bring 28 lawsuits in total, challenging each regional list separately. Volt co-leader also stated that the party was prepared to bring the case to the Czech Constitutional Court. By 27 August 3 regional courts had thrown out the case as a final ruling, saying that the 'non-coalitions' were legitimate. In response, Přísaha filed a similar lawsuit against the Pirates' candidate list in the Ústí nad Labem Region on 20 August, related to the inclusion of Green Party members.