Zdeněk Hřib

Mayor of Prague (2018–2023)

The Pirates finished second in the 2018 Prague municipal election, winning 13 out of 65 seats in the Prague City Assembly, and formed a governing coalition with the third- and fourth-placed lists which held 39 out of 65 seats. Hřib, as the leading Pirate candidate with 75,082 votes,^[7] was elected the Mayor of Prague on 15 November 2018 by the Prague City Assembly, taking over the office from Adriana Krnáčová.^[1][8]

In 2018, during a meeting with foreign diplomats in Prague, Hřib was asked by the Chinese ambassador to the Czech Republic to expel the representative of Taiwan, but refused to do so.^[9] He criticized a clause of the sister city agreement between Prague and Beijing that contained references to the One-China principle, stating that the policy is "a complicated matter of foreign politics between two countries" and therefore "has no place in the sister cities agreement".^[10] Hřib also subsequently criticized the retaliatory decision by the Chinese government to cancel a planned tour of China by the Prague Philharmonia as a politicization of culture. According to The Guardian, Hřib was responsible for restoring the "Czech Republic's image as a champion of human rights".^[10] Hřib visited Taiwan twice as the Mayor of Prague, first in 2019 and again in 2020.^[11][12]

On 17 January 2019, Hřib appealed to the city council to name a street in Prague in honor of Paweł Adamowicz, the former mayor of Gdańsk in Poland who was assassinated on 13 January 2019.^[13] On 5 June 2019, the street in Riegrovy Sady park named after Adamowicz was officially inaugurated.^[14] He renamed the square in front of the Russian embassy "Boris Nemtsov Square" in February 2020.^[15]

In December 2019, Hřib was among the four mayors of Visegrád Group capitals Prague, Warsaw, Bratislava and Budapest, who signed the Pact of Free Cities, agreeing to protect "common values of freedom, human dignity, democracy, equality, rule of law, social justice, tolerance and cultural diversity".^[16]

In April 2020, Hřib was placed under police protection after reports of an alleged Russian plot to poison him and other Prague politicians with ricin.^[17] The Security Information Service (BIS) stated that the information had originated from an internal communication between employees of the Russian embassy in Prague. The Czech government subsequently expelled two Russian diplomats.^[18]

Leader of the Pirate Party (2024–present)

In November 2024, Hřib was elected as leader of the Pirate Party.^[19] He led the party into the 2025 parliamentary election,^[20][21] and was elected as a member of the Chamber of Deputies for Prague.^[22]