Jaroslav Kubera (16 February 1947 – 20 January 2020) was a Czech politician for the Civic Democratic Party, who served in the Czech Senate representing Teplice from 2000 and the Senate President from 2018 until his death in 2020. He previously served as mayor of Teplice from 1994 to 2018.
Kubera was a potential candidate in the 2018 presidential election, gathering enough support from fellow senators to register his candidacy, before deciding not to run.
He died on 20 January 2020 after suffering a heart attack, becoming the first high-ranking Czech official to die in office.
Early life and career
Kubera was born in Louny on 16 February 1947. He studied mathematics at Masaryk University and business at the University of Economics, Prague, but did not complete his studies. Kubera stated that he left school due to impatience. He subsequently worked at Sklo Union Teplic and the business department of Elektrosvit Teplice. In 1990 he started working at the municipal bureau in Teplice.
Political career
Mayor of Teplice
In 1992, Kubera joined the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and led the party in the Teplice municipal election in 1994, becoming the mayor of Teplice. He served six terms as the mayor.
As mayor, Kubera received media attention for his measures to address crime and his attempts to regulate prostitution. He privatised some municipal companies, including the public transport company, making Teplice the only town in the Czech Republic without a publicly owned transport company.
Kubera led ODS to victory for the last time in the 2018 municipal election, and subsequently negotiated a coalition with ANO 2011, before stepping down as mayor to be succeeded by his colleague Hynek Hanza.
Senator
Kubera ran for the Senate in the 1998 Senate election. He finished first in the first round with 33% of the vote, advancing to the second round against Jaroslav Musial, who had received 19% in the first round. However, Musial won the second round by 5%, in Kubera's only electoral defeat.
Kubera ran for Senate again in 2000. Opinion polls conducted prior to the election placed him as a front-runner alongside Communist candidate Oldřich Bubeníček and Social Democratic candidate Valtr Komárek. An opinion poll published on 23 October 2000 saw Kubera with 29% support, against Bubeníček with 23% and Komárek with 18%. An opinion poll published on 1 November 2000 saw Kubera with 26% against Bubeníček and Komárek on 18%. Kubera eventually won 30% of the vote against Bubeníček's 27% and Komárek's 15%, defeating Bubeníček in the runoff with 56.5% to become a senator. As Senator, Kubera focused on similar topics as he worked on in municipal politics.
Kubera ran for re-election in 2006, winning the first round with 41% against Oldřich Bubeníček's 20%. He then defeated Bubeníček in the second round with 61% of votes.
Kubera ran for a third term in 2012. Although ODS suffered heavy losses during the 2012 Senate and regional elections in North Bohemia, Kubera received 40.5% of votes and advanced to the second round with Jaroslav Dubský, who had 18.5%. Kubera won a landslide victory in the second round with 67% of the votes. Following the election, Kubera became the Chairman of the ODS Senate Caucus.
Although he considered not running for reelection, Kubera ran for a fourth term in 2018. His main challengers were TOP 09 nominee Pavel Šedlbauer and Senator 21 nominee Zdeněk Bergman. He received 41% of votes, advancing to face Bergman, who got 21%. Kubera received 55.6% of votes in the second round and was reelected.
2018 presidential election
On 22 August 2015, Kubera announced that he was considering running for president in 2018, but said he would wait to see who else was running and then decide. In February 2017, he said that his candidacy would also depend on whether his wife wanted to be the first lady. On 20 July 2017 Kubera announced that his candidacy had the signatures of 15 senators from ODS, the Social Democratic Party, ANO 2011, Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party, the Freeholder Party and independents, as well as an endorsement from Přemysl Sobotka, who had run for the presidency in 2013. Kubera said that he would decide after the 2017 legislative election.