On the Way to the Mainstream? the Party of Free Citizens in the Czech Republic

In 2014 EP election, The Czech 'Party of Free Citizens' ('Svobodni') managed for the first time of its history to gain parliamentary representation. The party, established in early 2009 with an agenda focusing on criticism of the EU, gained one seat and in the EP and is represented by the party leader, Petr Mach. Svobodni is often presented as a single-issue Eurosceptic party, both by the media and scholars. The paper analyses the party's strategy in the 2014 EP electoral campaign in in order to understand how the party used EP elections in order to establish itself as part of the party system in the Czech Republic.