Petr Pavel’s supporters are deciding how to support him financially before the final presidential election, which will take place next Friday. His transparent account no longer accepts donations, as the 10 million legally allowed for the campaign between the first and second rounds has been taken by the generals team. For example, he sent hundreds of thousands of contributions back to several successful entrepreneurs. But there is a way, especially for smaller donors – and a trio of friends from Chrudim are behind it.

Jakub Losenický has been working professionally in the Czech startup environment for a long time, he worked for example at the fund Rockaway Capital, but he spent the last six months at home with his newly founded family. Apart from him and business, he is also interested in politics, in the Chrudim region, for example, many years ago he organized a protest against the senator and former chairman of Zemanovci, Jan Veleb. “At that time, we drew attention especially to his unacceptable statements regarding Ukraine and the attack on the independence of Czech Television. We wanted to show that there were people in his constituency who disagreed with him,” he remembered.

Now, together with his younger brother Vilém and his friend Josef Pokorný, they have decided to once again enter the world of public affairs and establish a community of donors. One million for the general. The push came Monday night, when I article on CzechCrunch learn about third-party agencies. Disappointment over the results of the first and second direct presidential elections flashed through my head, and I told myself that this time I didn’t want to be disappointed again. Even now it can be very tight, that’s why we decided to support Petr Pavel’s candidacy to try to get the one million crowns allowed.” said Losenicky.

In essence, according to the law, candidates alone are allowed to spend 40 million on advertising before the first round of elections and an additional 10 million before the second round. But there’s a way their campaign can get much bigger – with the help of a third-party agency that can, officially without the candidate’s knowledge, spending up to a million crowns on its support. And as his supporters filled Peter Pavle’s transparent account with ten million within hours of him winning the first round of the election, it did the third person as a valuable solution. Especially when opposed by Andrej Babiš, who didn’t even spend his entire budget before the first election and is known for his marketing machine. Unlike Petr Pavel, the former prime minister does not collect donations from supporters.

The Institute of the Third Person quickly became a concern among Petr Pavel’s sponsors. In this way, billionaire Jablonec Dalibor Dědek will support his campaign with a million crowns. Petr Borkovec, founder of consulting group Partners, is on LinkedIn explainedthat Pavlo’s staff returned his half-million-dollar contribution, which went into the general’s account only after it was topped up, and that he made a deal with Livesport co-founder Jiří Mareš, who had made his account transparent and was registered by the Office for the Supervision of Political Party Financing as a third party. “We’ll probably buy the Journal headlines,” said Borkovec.

But for a small donor, there are not so many ways to support Petr Pavel – on the one hand, you can’t do much with a thousand, and on the other hand, sending it to his account no longer makes sense. “I think we are the only option for small donors to get involved. What’s more, if more small donors join together, it will have a much bigger effect,” explains Losenicý. What exactly they will do with the money raised, or rather where and what media space they will buy, will depend on how much money they raise. By Friday afternoon, there were less than 100 thousand crowns on the account.

process helped through One million for the general quite simple – just fill out a short registration form on the website, then a confirmation will be sent to the specified e-mail, which also contains payment information, whereby the contribution can be sent.

Losenický, his brother Vilém, who is still studying at a grammar school, and his friend Josef Pokorný, who works as a data analyst at the Czech News Center publisher, say that the whole project took about two days from idea to implementation. They draw on experiences from other social digital events they’ve tried: “Last year, on November 17, we organized a play for young people as part of the Freedom Festival Velvet bee, where players from all over the Czech Republic can join via Instagram. Our goal is to get people active in the public space.”

And why do the natives of Nasavrk in East Bohemia think that Petr Pavel should win, and not Andrej Babiš? “Before the first elections, we supported Petr Pavlov and Danuša Nerudová, we chose between them. Now the choice is clear. Andrej Babiš as president, with all his famous problems, will be a big problem for Czechia. It can be seen from the way he is campaigning that the atmosphere is good in society is the last thing he cares about.” says Jakub Losenický, clearly the oldest of the three.