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Mayors and Independents Starostové a nezávislí
Leader	Vít Rakušan
Deputy Leaders	Lukáš Vlček Jan Farský Michaela Šebelová Pavel Čížek Karel Dvořák
Chamber of Deputies Leader	Josef Cogan
Senate Leader	Petr Holeček
Founder	Petr Gazdík
Founded	2004; 21 years ago (2004)
Newspaper	STANoviny
Think tank	Institute of Modern Politics iSTAR
Youth wing	Young Mayors and Independents
Membership(2025)	2092[1]
Ideology	Local politics[2] Liberalism[6] Pro-Europeanism
Political position	Centre[10] tocentre-right[15]
National affiliation	Pirates and Mayors (2020–2021)
European Parliament group	European People's Party Group
Colours	Pink  Yellow
Slogan	Staráme se o lidi (lit. 'We take care of people.')[16]
Chamber of Deputies	20 / 200
Senate	19 / 81
European Parliament	2 / 21
Regional councils	91 / 675
Regional governors	2 / 13
Local councils	3,073 / 62,300
Website
starostove-nezavisli.cz
Politics of the Czech Republic Political parties Elections

Mayors and Independents (Czech:Starostové a nezávislí,STAN) is aliberal^[17]political party in theCzech Republic, focused onlocalism,^[2]regionalism^[18] andsubsidiarity. It holds 33 seats in theChamber of Deputies, and is the third strongest party by number of seats following the2021 election. In theSenate, STAN is represented by 19 Senators.

The party grew out of four minor parties, including theIndependent Mayors for the Region,^[19] and theliberal-conservativeSNK European Democrats. Until 2016, the party cooperated in national elections with another liberal-conservative party,TOP 09. STAN contested the2021 Czech parliamentary election as part of the coalitionPirates and Mayors with theCzech Pirate Party.

STAN grew out of theIndependent Mayors for the Region (Nezávislí starostové pro kraj; NSK), founded in 2004. In 2009, led by its first leaderPetr Gazdík and deputy leaderStanislav Polčák, STAN started co-operating with the liberal-conservative TOP 09 at all levels, with Gazdík leading the TOP 09 and STAN parliamentary group. In the2010 local elections, the party won 1,243 councillors, making it the sixth-largest party on local councils.^[20]

In 2013, the co-operation with TOP 09 ended at local and regional levels, and continued only in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. In the2013 election to theChamber of Deputies, STAN won five seats on the TOP 09 list:Jan Farský,Stanislav Polčák,Věra Kovářová [cs],František Vácha [cs] and acting leaderPetr Gazdík.

In March 2014,Martin Půta [cs], governor of theLiberec Region, was unanimously elected leader of STAN, and Gazdík became the first deputy leader with Polčák as the second deputy.^[21] Running a joint list for the2014 European Parliament election, STAN and TOP 09 received 15.95% of the vote and won four seats,^[22] one of which was taken by STAN's Stanislav Polčák. In 2016, Martin Půta was succeeded by Petr Gazdík, who led STAN into the regional and Senate elections. In the2017 election to theChamber of Deputies, STAN won six seats:Petr Gazdík,Jan Farský,Věra Kovářová [cs],Vít Rakušan,Martin Půta [cs] (who was replaced byPetr Pávek [cs]) andJana Krutáková [cs].^[23]

In 2019Vít Rakušan was elected as leader.^[24] In 2020 STAN won the Senate elections, taking 11 of the 27 seats contested. The party contested the2021 Czech parliamentary election as part of thePirates and Mayors coalition with theCzech Pirate Party. Thanks to preferential voting, STAN took most of the coalition's 37 seats, winning 33 and becoming the third strongest party in the Chamber of Deputies.^[25]

In promoting the principle of subsidiarity, STAN encourages localism, decentralisation, reduced bureaucracy and anti-corruption measures.^[2] STAN also promotes European integration, improvements to education, and investment in science.

Election	Leader	Vote	%	Seats	±	Position	Status
2010	Petr Gazdík	873,833	16.71	5 / 200	New	6th	Coalition
	Ran onTOP 09 list, which won 41 seats in total
2013	Petr Gazdík	596,357	12.00	4 / 200	1	8th	Opposition
	Ran onTOP 09 list, which won 26 seats in total
2017	Petr Gazdík[a]	262,157	5.18	6 / 200	2	9th	Opposition
2021	Vít Rakušan	839,448	15.61	33 / 200	27	3rd	Coalition
	Part of thePirates and Mayors coalition, which won 37 seats in total
2025	Vít Rakušan	631,512	11.23	22 / 200	11	3rd	[to be determined]

Election	First round			Second round			Seats	Total seats	+/–
	Votes	%	Place	Votes	%	Place
2012	4,460	0.5	25th				0 / 27	0 / 81	New
2014	15,576	1.5	9th	11,099	2.3	9th	2 / 27	2 / 81	2
2016	43,234	4.9	7th	25,389	6.0	6th	3 / 27	5 / 81	3
2018	76,817	7.0	7th	47,317	11.3	3rd	5 / 27	11 / 81	5
2020	122,948	12.3	2nd	104,538	23.1	1st	11 / 27	19 / 81	7
2022	75,406	6.8	5th	6,410	1.3	13th	0 / 27	15 / 81	4
2024	87,734	11.1	3rd	53,498	13.7	3rd	5 / 27	15 / 81

Election	List leader	Votes	%	Seats	+/−	EP Group
2009[b]	Jaromír Štětina	53,984	2.29 (#8)	0 / 22	New	−
2014[c]	Luděk Niedermayer	241,747	15.95 (#2)	1 / 21	1	EPP
2019[d]	Jiří Pospíšil	276,220	11.65 (#4)	1 / 21
2024[e]	Danuše Nerudová	258,431	8.70 (#5)	2 / 21	1

Election	Vote	%	Seats	+/–	Position
2004	Ran only in coalitions		1 / 675	1	10th
2008	53,462	1.83	14 / 675	13	5th
2012	28,763	1.09	38 / 675	24	5th
2016	101,696	4.02	56 / 675	18	6th
2020	167,459	6.04	91 / 675	35	4th

Election	Leader	Coalition			Seats	+/–	Position	Status
		Parties	Votes	%
2014	Petr Štěpánek	STAN–KDU-ČSL–Zelení	2,323,976	11.2	2 / 65	2	8th	Coalition
2018	Petr Hlaváček	STAN–TOP 09–KDU-ČSL–LES–SKN ED	4,127,063	16.3	4 / 65	2	6th	Coalition
2022		—	1,831,696	7.8	5 / 65	1	5th	Coalition

• Josef Zicha (2005–2009)
• Petr Gazdík (2009–2014)
• Martin Půta (2014–2016)
• Petr Gazdík (2016–2019)
• Vít Rakušan (Since 2019)

• Mayors and Independents official website(in Czech)

• Mayors and Independents
• Centrist political parties in the Czech Republic
• Centre-right parties in Europe
• Liberal parties in the Czech Republic
• Political parties established in 2004
• Regionalist parties in the Czech Republic
• Pro-European political parties in the Czech Republic
• 2004 establishments in the Czech Republic

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