Zdeněk Hřib

Zdeněk Hřib (born 21 May 1981) is a Czech healthcare manager and Czech Pirate Party politician who served as the Mayor of Prague from November 2018 to February 2023.[1]

Zdeněk Hřib
Hřib in 2019
Mayor of Prague
In office
15 November 2018 – 16 February 2023
Preceded byAdriana Krnáčová
Succeeded byBohuslav Svoboda
Member of the Prague City Assembly
Assumed office
6 October 2018
Personal details
Born (1981-05-21) 21 May 1981
Slavičín, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)
Political partyCzech Pirate Party
Alma materCharles University
Occupation
  • Manager
  • physician
Websitewww.pirati.cz/lide/zdenek-hrib/

Initially a physician, Hřib held managerial and consulting positions in state, corporate and non-profit healthcare entities dedicated to digitization, quality control, and consumer protection. He ran unsuccessfully in the 2014 Prague municipal election, but assumed office following the 2018 municipal election, where the Pirates ranked second and formed a governing coalition with the third and fourth-ranked parties that holds 39 out of 65 seats in the Prague City Assembly.

Early life and career

Zdeněk Hřib was born on 21 May 1981 in Slavičín, near the city of Zlín in the south-east of the Czech Republic. He studied medicine at the Charles University in Prague and participated in a student exchange program in Taiwan.[2]

Subsequently, Hřib held managerial positions in the healthcare industry, focusing on digitization of healthcare services.[3] Since 2012, he has been the director and founder of a non-profit organization that provides quality control, efficiency assessment and consulting for healthcare providers as well as consumer protection for healthcare customers.[4]

In 2013, Hřib became a registered supporter of the Czech Pirate Party[5] and ran unsuccessfully in the 2014 Prague municipal election.[6]

Mayor of Prague (2018–2023)
Hřib (left) at a 2018 press conference with party vice-chairman Jakub Michálek, chairman Ivan Bartoš and vice-chairwoman Olga Richterová
Hřib in Prague in February 2020 during the ceremonial renaming of a plaza after assassinated Russian dissident Boris Nemtsov

The Pirates ranked 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-ranked coalitions that holds a total of 39 out of 65 seats. Hřib, as the leading Pirate candidate with 75,082 votes,[7] was elected the Mayor of Prague[1] on 15 November 2018 by the Prague City Assembly and took over the office from Adriana Krnáčová.[8]

Hřib and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan Joseph Wu in April 2019

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, and Hřib refused to do so.[9] He has criticized a clause of the sister city agreement between Prague and Beijing that references to the One-China principle and he stated that this 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 a retaliatory decision of 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 as the Mayor twice, first in 2019 and again in 2020.[11][12]

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".[13]

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.[14] On 5 June 2019, the street in Riegrovy Sady park named after Adamowicz was officially inaugurated.[15] In February 2020, he named the square in front of the Russian embassy “Boris Nemtsov Square”.[16] In April 2020, Hřib oversaw the removal of the statue dedicated to Soviet marshal Ivan Konev, as Konev is viewed in the Czech Republic as a symbol of Soviet-era oppression.[17]

In April 2020, Hřib was put under police protection, because Czech intelligence had received evidence of a planned poisoning attack by the Russian secret service.[18]

Personal life

Hřib is married and has three children. As a mayor, he commutes by public transport.

See also

References
  1. Primátorem Prahy bude Pirát Hřib. Další koaliční lídři jsou mimo radu (in Czech). Mladá fronta DNES. 25 October 2018.
  2. "Zdenek Hrib". Archived from the original on 28 October 2018. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  3. Ministerstvo vnímá eRecept jako nástroj k šikaně lidí, říká jeho tvůrce a kandidát Pirátů na primátora Hřib (in Czech). Czech Radio. 4. 6. 2018.
  4. Úplný výpis z rejstříku obecně prospěšných společností Institut pro aplikovaný výzkum, edukaci a řízení ve zdravotnictví, o.p.s., O 990 vedená u Městského soudu v Praze. Register of the Ministry of Justice (Czech Republic).
  5. Pražským primátorem bude Pirát Hřib. Čižinský ani Pospíšil v radě nebudou (in Czech). Lidové noviny. 25.10.2018.
  6. Volby do zastupitelstev obcí 2014. volby.cz.
  7. "Jmenné seznamy | volby.cz". www.volby.cz.
  8. "Zdeněk Hřib se stal primátorem Prahy. Opoziční ANO a ODS ho nepodpořily". Aktuálně.cz (in Czech). Economia, a.s. 15 November 2018. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
  9. Hsu, Stacy (30 March 2019). "Prague mayor condemns treatment of diplomat". Taipei Times. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  10. Tait, Robert (3 July 2019). "Zdeněk Hřib: the Czech mayor who defied China". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  11. 廖, 綉玉 (31 March 2019). "帥哥市長賀吉普談智慧城市：布拉格將建立AI超級樞紐 打造透明市政、促進民眾參與". 風傳媒. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  12. 吳, 妍 (31 August 2020). "布拉格市長賀吉普秀卡片 曝光訪台行程滿檔". 鏡周刊. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  13. Shaun Walker. Islands in the illiberal storm: central European cities vow to stand together. theguardian.com. 16 Dec 2019.
  14. "Praga: burmistrz Zdeněk Hřib chce stworzyć ulicę im. Pawła Adamowicza". Onet Wiadomości (in Polish). 17 January 2019. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  15. "Prague officially inaugurates street in honour of slain Polish mayor". Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  16. Kottasová, Ivana (24 February 2020). "Prague renames square in front of Russian embassy after slain Putin critic Boris Nemtsov". CNN. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  17. "Prague mayor under protection after reports of Russian plot". timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  18. "Police protecting Prague mayor after 'murder plot'", BBC News, 29 April 2020, retrieved 18 June 2020
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