Did Filip Turek, a candidate of the Czech non-parliamentary parties coalition Prisaha and Motoriste Sobe, who won a seat in the European Parliament in the 2024 elections, get the highest percentage of preferential votes in the history of the Czech Republic? No, that's not true: Another candidate received a higher percentage of such votes in the 2004 European Parliament elections, according to data from the Czech Statistical Office.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok on June 16, 2024. It shows an excerpt from a debate show on Czech broadcaster CNN Prima News, moderated by Terezie Tomankova, with Filip Turek, who won a seat in the European Parliament in the 2024 elections for the Prisaha and Motoriste Sobe coalition. The host says that Turek received 300,000 votes, the third-highest number of votes for a candidate in the elections. The caption of the video in Czech says, translated by Lead Stories staff:
Thank you all so much. By the way, the number of preferential votes was the second highest in the Czech Republic´s history in all types of elections since 1993 (apart from the presidential elections, of course). Proportionally, the result in terms of the total number of votes ratio, was an unrivalled first place in the history of all types of elections.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Jun 24 07:21:59 2024 UTC)
Filip Turek received the second-highest absolute number of 152,196 preferential votes in the 2024 European Parliament elections, right after the main opposition ANO party candidate Klára Dostálová with 171,142 votes, according to data from the Czech Statistical Office (archived here). In terms of the ratio of preferential votes to total votes, Turek received 49,96 percent of preferential votes in the elections, the official statistics show (archived here).
The first statement from the caption of the TikTok video above on the total number of preferential votes being the second-highest in the history of all Czech elections is correct, Czech Statistical Office spokesman Jan Cieslar (archived here) wrote in an email to Lead Stories in Czech on June 19, 2024, as translated by Lead Stories staff. He wrote:
The 152,196 preferential votes for Filip Turek are the second-highest absolute number of preferential votes for a candidate in elections in which preferential votes are given (elections to the European Parliament, regional councils and the Chamber of Deputies) since 1993. Only Klára Dostálová, who received 171,142 preferential votes in this year's European Parliament elections, had a higher number of preferential votes.
However, the statement in the TikTok claiming that "in proportion to the total number of votes, the result was an unrivaled first place in the history of all types of elections" is not accurate, Cieslar added: In the 2004 European Parliament elections Jana Bobošíková won 52,01 percent of the total preferential votes of the NEZÁVISLÍ party for which she was elected, according to the Czech Statistical Office.
The Czech Statistical Office website showing the 2004 European Parliament results with the 52,01 percent of preferential votes for Jana Bobosikova can be seen here (archived here).
Filip Turek is a new face on the Czech political scene, who campaigned mainly on criticism of EU environmental policy and the impact of the Green Deal on the car industry (archived here). He ran as a candidate (archived here) for Prisaha and Motoriste Sobe coalition. The post-election debate on CNN Prima News featuring Turek, which is used in the video, can be seen here (archived here).
The overall 2024 European Parliament elections official statistics for the Czech Republic can be found here (archived here).
