Ivan Bartoš
Ivan Bartoš is a Czech software architect, activist, politician and a member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic since October 2017. In 2009–2014 and since 2016, he is the chairman of the Czech Pirate Party, the third largest party in the Chamber of Deputies following the 2017 legislative election, and serves as the chairman of the Committee on Public Administration and Regional Development since November 2017.Work and political activism
Ivan Bartoš was born on 20 March 1980, in Jablonec nad Nisou, a mountain resort town in Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic. He studied information studies and librarianship at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague and participated in a student exchange program at the University of New Orleans. Subsequently, Bartoš worked in the IT industry, and was elected chairman of the Pirate Party in October 2009.
Bartoš led the party into its first national elections in 2010, with the Pirates receiving 0.8% of the vote and therefore no representation in the Chamber of Deputies.
Bartoš was the party's leading candidate again in legislative elections in 2013. The party won 2.66% of the vote, not reaching the 5% electoral threshold. Bartoš was the Pirates' leading candidate for the 2014 European Parliament election, but the party just missed the 5% electoral threshold, receiving 4.78% of the vote. In June 2014, Bartoš resigned as party leader.
Bartoš was elected party chairman again in 2016 and led the Pirates into the 2017 legislative elections, taking 10.8% of the national vote to become the third largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, with 22 out of 200 seats.
Bartoš was re-elected as party leader in 2018 and led the party's campaign for the 2018 local elections, where the leading Pirate candidate in Prague, Zdeněk Hřib, was elected Mayor of Prague. In 2019, Bartoš campaigned for the European Parliament election in support of Marcel Kolaja and other leading Pirate candidates. The party gained 13.95% of the vote and entered the European Parliament with three MEPs.
In January 2020, Bartoš was re-elected as party leader.He is a member of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, and has been married since 2015. He has supported anti-fascist events and is a pacifist. Bartoš participates in "do it yourself" culture, plays accordion, and played church organ during his youth.
