Democratic Party of Greens â FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS (, DSZ - ZA PRÃÂVA ZVÃÂà ÂAT) is a green political party in the Czech Republic. It was founded on 10 March 2009 as a split from the Green Party, led by two Green MPs, Olga Zubová and VÃÂra Jakubková, who opposed the party's participation in the centre-right government of Mirek Topolánek. The current leader is Jià ÂàAnderle, representative of KlenÃÂàpod ÃÂerchovem
Following the 2008 regional elections, Dana Kuchtová, the former minister of education, published an appeal addressed to the then-chairman of the Green Party, Martin BursÃÂk, the party's executive committee, and the party members, in which she criticized the leadership at the time for the election defeat. On January 31, 2009, she published the Democratic Appeal (). The main goal of the appeal was the restoration of voters' confidence in the Green Party. The appeal also announced the formation of an internal party platform dedicated to rebuilding the party. More than 300 party members, including MPs Olga Zubová and VÃÂra Jakubková, decided to support the appeal.
The planned formation of the Democratic Party of Greens was announced by Jan Vondrouà ¡ the day after four politicians â Dana Kuchtová, Olga Zubová, VÃÂra Jakubková, and Martin ÃÂáslavka â were expelled from the Green Party. The party was founded on March 10, 2009. The MP Olga Zubová joined the newly formed party, thereby securing parliamentary representation, while VÃÂra Jakubková became an honorary member. The first leadership consisted of the chairman Vladislav Koval, along with Jan Vondrouà ¡, Olga Zubová, JaromÃÂr Soukup, LuÃÂka Tomeà ¡ová and Jià ÂÃ à  teg. The initiator of the appeal, Dana Kuchtová, did not join the new party and called on her former party colleagues to remain within the Green Party.
The party ran unsuccessfully in the 2009 European Parliament elections, in which it received 0.6% of the vote. The campaign was mostly financed by JaromÃÂr Soukup. The party's lead candidate was Daniel Solis, but the most prominent faces of the campaign were Olga Zubová, along with JaromÃÂr Soukup and sociologist Jan Keller. The party ran on a platform titled Vision of Democratic Europe.
The party approached the newly formed Czech Pirate Party before the European Parliament elections with an offer of cooperation for the upcoming Legislative election, but the Pirates rejected the offer. Ultimately, the Democratic Party of Greens received an offer to run on the ticket of the Czech Social Democratic Party. The party accepted this offer, and Olga Zubová was placed in the 5th position on the ÃÂSSD's Prague ticket.
In the summer of 2009, the party participated in protests against the state high school-leaving exams. On July 16, a protest was held by the Green Revolution (GR) group, which was affiliated with the party. The primary organizer of the July protest was Markéta ZahradnÃÂková, who worked for JaromÃÂr Soukup's media companies.
Following the decision not to call an early election, an anonymous member of the ÃÂSSD announced that Olga Zubová would likely be removed from the ÃÂSSD's Prague ticket due to a lackluster campaign performance. The then-chairman of the Prague ÃÂSSD, Miroslav Poche, and the leader of the Prague list, Petr HulÃÂnský, dismissed this as speculation and announced that the party would run with the same candidates as in the canceled election, meaning that Olga Zubová would remain on the list. Despite this, Olga Zubová did not appear on the final ticket; this decision may have been influenced by the fact that JaromÃÂr Soukup, who had financed the party campaign up to that point, decided to withdraw further financial support.
On October 6, 2009, Olga Zubová became the party's chairwoman. In January 2010, the party amended its bylaws, relocated its headquarters, and changed its name from Demokratická strana Zelených to Demokratická strana zelených. Since the party was no longer running in the legislative election it decided to focus on the autumn Senate and municipal elections. For the Senate elections the party fielded three candidates and ran on a platform titled Vision of a Europe of Peace and Democracy. In the municipal elections, the party invited anyone who did not hold racist or xenophobic views to run on its ticket, including members of other parties. Party founder Daniel Solis ran in Prague 1 as the leader of the Green Prague Residents () list (together with Party of Civic Rights â Zemanites) In Domaà ¾lice, KlenÃÂàpod ÃÂerchovem and Mrákov the party ran together with Sovereignty. In Ostrava, party founder Vladislav Koval ran as the leader of the DECLARATION OF COMMON INTERESTS () list.
In June 2011, VojtÃÂch Tomeà ¡ became the party's chairman. On July 4, 2011, former party chairwoman Olga Zubová was introduced at a press conference held by Sovereignty â Jana Boboà ¡ÃÂková's Bloc as the newly elected chairwoman of the party's Central Bohemian regional organization. The two parties had already cooperated in the municipal elections in Domaà ¾lice and Klatovy districts. In early 2012, Olga Zubová declared that the Democratic Party of Greens had "folded" into Sovereignty; she cited the defense of Czech interests in the European Union and the rejection of foreign military missions as areas of ideological overlap. Party chairman VojtÃÂch Tomeà ¡ was also in favor of uniting the left, stating that he could envision cooperation even with the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and that the Democratic Party of Greens was not pro-European at that time. In June 2012, Jià ÂàAnderle became the party's chairman and he decided to continue cooperating with Jana Boboà ¡ÃÂková. The party ran on Sovereignty â Party of Common Sense list in the 2012 regional election in the Plzeà  Region, supported Jana Boboà ¡ÃÂková in the 2013 Czech presidential election, ran within Jana Boboà ¡ÃÂková's next electoral project, the Head Up â Electoral Bloc in the 2013 legislative election. In the 2014 European Parliament elections the party ran on the Czech Sovereignty list.
The party began to act independently again in September 2014. Daniel Solis, one of the party's founders of the party, spoke at a protest against the sanctions imposed on Russia following the Russian annexation of Crimea. In his speech, he criticized Martin BursÃÂk, a petition called We are Distancing Ourselves () initiated by Michael Kocáb, and also TOP 09 for alleged protection and covering up of fascism. In the 2014 municipal elections the Democratic Party of Greens ran under its name in Plzeà  Region where it received support of the Civic Conservative Party. In return the party endorsed Civic Conservative Party for the Prague municipal elections, with the exception of Prague 2, where the party endorsed the Civic Democratic Party. The party's mayoral candidate in Plzeà  was former police officer ZdenÃÂk Kylián, whose previous conviction for the illegal use of pictures from police databases had been cleared by Václav Klaus's amnesty. The party's leader Jià ÂàAnderle stated, that the party would support Kylián even if ZdenÃÂk Kylián was not cleared.
On January 19, 2015, the party declared its support for Jana ÃÂernochová from the Civic Democratic Party, then-mayor of Prague 2, following her speech at an anti-Islam protest organized by Martin KonviÃÂka. On June 15, 2015, the party announced its support for initiatives by Civic Conservative Party, calling for a petition against migrant quotas, referendum on Czechia leaving the European Union, creation of the Movement for Strong Czech Republic in Europe of Free Nations, cooperation with the French National Rally and lifting of the sanctions imposed on Russia. On August 11, 2015, the party announced that they agree with the President Miloà ¡ Zeman's hardline stance against accepting any migrants from culturally distinct regions.
On May 17, 2016, the party launched the Vlast initiative, which opposed the European Union's and Angela Merkel's approach to the migration crisis. The initiative called for the unification of anti-immigration parties and movements into a single group with the working title HOMELAND (), which intended to contest the 2017 Legislative election. The initiative published a list of 75 groups it aimed to involve in the emerging project, 42 of which were active. Among the parties mentioned were, for example, the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement, the Workers' Party of Social Justice and Miroslav Sládek's Republicans.
On June 30, 2016 the party announced a joint list for the 2016 Regional elections with the parties RozumnÃÂ, Czech National Socialist Party and Czech National Social Party; the electoral name of this coalition was "NO TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION - MONEY BETTER SPENT ON OUR PEOPLE" (). This slogan was intended to refer to the list's two main positions: the rejection of immigrants from the Middle East and the fight against the exploitation of the healthcare and social welfare systems. Within the list the Democratic Party of Greens presented itself as the only non-Marxist green party in the Czech Republic, comparing its vision of green politics to the Brontosaurs movement. For the Senate elections which took place at the same time the party decided to endorse ideologically close candidates, they endorsed 16 candidates in the first round and three candidates in the second round.
Following the 2016 Regional elections, in which the Freedom and Direct Democracy, running together with Party of Civic Rights, was the only anti-immigration party to win seats on the councils, lawyer Norbert Naxera, with the party's approval, issued a new call for unity ahead of the upcoming Legislative elections. In this appeal, the party expressed the need to secure sponsors and cited the Slovak People's Party Our Slovakia as an inspiration. The appeal further contained four points on which the parties on the joint list were to agree. Specifically, these were the approval of a law on a general referendum, a ban on accepting immigrants from non-European countries, withdrawal from the EU and NATO. On December 23, 2016, the party published a letter from the Homeland initiative announcing that TomÃ¡à ¡ Ortel, frontman of the band Ortel, had taken over as the initiative's leader. On May 2, 2017 the party announced that it would run on the list of the Party of Common Sense and it supported their presidential candidate Petr Hannig in the 2018 presidential election. In the second round the party decided to endorse Miloà ¡ Zeman and it criticized his opponent Jià ÂàDrahoà ¡ for skinning a rabbit during the campaign. On May 29, 2018, the party expressed support for the protests of the Decent People movement against the play Our Violence and Your Violence by Oliver FrljiÃÂ.
On July 28, 2018, the party announced that it invites all animal rights groups to join its lists for the 2018 municipal elections and that it would allow these groups to pick a name for these lists. Following the success of this initiative the party decided to change its name on January 31, 2019 to Democratic Party of Greens â For Animal Rights () and on February 12, 2019, the party released a list of 12 new priorities focused exclusively on animal rights. Among these points there are stricters punishments for animal abuse, banning of puppy mills or banning experiments on animals.
On May 9, 2019, Andrea Bychlová, the party's leader for the 2019 European Parliament elections, shared her vision for the campaign. The main goal was to join the other European animal rights parties and establish a European Parliament group focused solely on animal rights. The party got approached by the Animal Politics Foundation created by the Dutch Party for the Animals regarding cooperation in the elections. In an interview with the Czech Television, Andrea Bychlová also stated that she supports policies to combat climate change, referendum on Czechia leaving the European Union, lifting of sanctions on Russia and is in favour of Ukraine and Turkey joining the EU.
For the 2020 Regional Elections the party managed to run alone in all 13 regions and it once again invited animal rights groups on its lists. The party also ran in the Senate elections and it endorsed candidates who promised to advocate for animal rights. The party's best result was in Plzeà  Region, where it received 1.03% of the vote.
On May 20, 2021, the party announced that it will join other non-parliamentary parties in running in the 2021 Legislative election on the Alliance for the Future list. The party became the list's program guarantor in regards to animal and environment protection. The chairman of the Democratic Party of Greens Jià ÂàAnderle said that one of the main reasons for joining this list was the 5% threshold, which he considers discriminatory towards smaller parties. The list failed to meet the 5% threshold. In the 2022 municipal elections the party once again invited animal rights groups to run on its lists and the party also ran one candidate in the Senate elections.
The party ran in the 2024 European Parliament elections with Hana Janià ¡ová as its lead candidate. The party once again solely focused on the issue of animal rights, stating that while the biggest priorities in general are migrants, the war in Ukraine and the adoption of Euro, which Hana Janià ¡ová is in favor of, the main goal of the party would be to enforce current EU legislation. In the student election the party managed to secure 4.55% of the vote, placing 8th just behind ANO 2011 and ahead of the Green Party. In the election, the party received 0.41% of the vote. In the 2024 Regional Elections the party ran alone in all 13 regions, the party's best result was in Plzeà  Region, where it received 0.89% of the vote.
The party intended to run in the 2025 Legislative election. The party first approached the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia regarding a possible cooperation, since it considered to run on the StaÃÂilo! list. The parties have not reached an agreement and on August 12, 2025, the party presented its candidates in the Plzeà  Region, which was the only region in which the party intended to run. Subsequently, on September 10, 2025, the party announced its withdrawal from the election, stating that it would support a party with platform aligned with its priorities in the areas of animal rights. On September 22, 2025, the party announced its endorsement of ANO 2011 movement and called on its members, voters, supporters and animal rights activists to vote for vote this movement.
The party got criticized by Green MP Kateà Âina Jacques for vote splitting. She claimed that the party exists solely to damage the Green Party and that it was created by JaromÃÂr Soukup, who, according to Kateà ÂÃÂna Jacques, wanted to have a strong influence on the Green Party, when Martin BursÃÂk stood up to him. She claims that following the 2009 European Parliament elections, where both parties failed to enter the European Parliament, JaromÃÂr Soukup sent an SMS to Martin BursÃÂk, which read "I really showed you" (). She claims that the MPs Olga Zubová and VÃÂra Jakubková were not active and that is why JaromÃÂr Soukup decided to influence them.
Before the 2020 Regional elections the Czech Television with help from KANTAR and Data Collect polling agencies conducted a poll measuring electoral potential in all 13 regions. The poll showed DSZ's potential between 3% and 6% and the party got invited to participate in three debates. This result seemed surprising and got criticized by DenÃÂk N and ParlametnÃÂ listy because the party was not very well known and was not running full lists in all the regions and in some the party had only one candidate.
Similar situation happened before the 2024 Regional elections. The Czech Television tasked KANTAR and Data Collect polling agencies to conduct a poll measuring electoral potential in all 13 regions. The results of this poll were used to invite parties into the broadcast debates. The poll showed DSZ's electoral potential in all regions between 6% and 10% and the party got invited into the debate for Hradec Králové Region.