Martin Stropnický is an actor, singer-songwriter, diplomat and politician of the ANO movement who served as Minister of Culture, Defence and Foreign Affairs and as an ambassador.
Martin Stropnický is a Czech actor, singer-songwriter, theatre director and politician of the ANO movement. He held the posts of Minister of Defence and later of Foreign Affairs and also served as an ambassador.[1][2]
Career before politics
In an interview from April 2014, when he was fifty-seven and Minister of Defence, the Czech Armed Forces present him as a well-known actor, singer-songwriter, ambassador to Portugal, Italy and the Vatican, Minister of Culture, theatre director and regional election leader of a successful political party. He himself mentioned that he had been a member of the Tošovský government.[1] As a director he also worked in the theatre, for example staging The King's Speech at the National Theatre Brno.[1]
Joining the ANO movement
By his own account, he had not joined any political party earlier because he had not found a party whose people he wanted to go along with. He decided to enter politics for civic reasons and because of his children, as he knew many young people who had left for abroad. He joined ANO at the end of June, when the movement, according to him, had about 1.7 percent in the polls. He added that early elections were announced shortly afterwards and that the movement's successful result caught him in the middle of theatre preparations.[1]
Minister of Defence and Foreign Affairs
According to a report by Czech Television, Stropnický, as Minister of Defence, said in an interview for Mladá fronta DNES that Moscow was allegedly paying part of the cost of moving refugees along the Balkan route, and he referred to information from his Hungarian counterpart. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected his words as unsubstantiated.[3]
Departure from the Chamber of Deputies
Czech Television describes Stropnický as a former Minister of Defence and subsequently of Foreign Affairs. His statement of resignation from his seat as a deputy reached the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, as the spokeswoman of its speaker said. He left for Israel, where he was to serve as Czech ambassador from November, and for this reason he also left the leadership of the ANO movement.[2]