Czech mayors - successful incumbents in a complicated electoral system?

The electoral system for the municipal councils in the Czech Republic is one of the most complicated in Europe. Since its creation, experts have proposed various changes to simplify it and make it more attractive to voters. One of the biggest problems here is the position of the mayor. Voters themselves often think that their vote directly influences who will become their municipality's new mayor. However, this assumption does not work under the Czech system. Unlike in neighboring countries, the mayor is not elected directly but is elected by the newly established municipal council at its first meeting. The electoral system focuses much more on the electoral lists than the individuals. This misunderstanding of the system is then reflected in voting behavior. One of the consequences of this situation is the appearance of the incumbency effect, a condition where the incumbents have an advantage over their opponents. Its impact on the results of elections has long been known. However, it is still a relatively marginal part of research, especially in Central Europe. For example, research on this topic in the Czech Republic is also limited by the lack of resources. No public institution has maintained a complete database of mayors over the last 30 years. Because of this, the researchers usually limit themselves to only one election. Focus on multiple electoral periods, making this paper distinctive from previous studies. This paper looks at the mayors who were able to defend their positions in several consecutive electoral periods. It examines whether we can observe the manifestation of incumbency advantage among Czech mayors and how high this advantage is. It also discusses the electoral system for Czech municipal elections and its influence on the studied phenomenon and explores how to move forward in the research. To do so, it uses a database compiled from mayors of the 128 largest cities in the Czech Republic, excluding Prague. It contains electoral data of successful incumbents between 2002 and 2022. It can be concluded that these mayors have an advantage over their challengers while they are incumbents. This is reflected in the high proportion of cases where mayors defend their post, which happens on average in more than 50 % of cases. This points to the fact that the incumbency effect is significant even though the electoral system does not support it. The research also shows other important factors that can affect a mayor's result in an election such as competitiveness, position on the candidate list and the situation on the national scene.