Karel Řehka's second-round Senate victory on Sat. was as important for STAN as Jan Grolich's first-round victory was for KDU-ČSL a week earlier. STAN is gaining not only a prominent voice in the Senate for challenging the government of Andrej Babiš on security and defense issues, but also potentially a future presidential candidate for running to succeed Petr Pavel. Babiš had the chance earlier this year to dismiss Řehka as army chief of staff for repeated insubordination under two defense ministers, Jana Černochová (ODS) and Jaromír Zůna (SPD), but he didn't act. It seemed at the time that Babiš didn't want to give Řehka's political ambitions a boost by making him a martyr for the opposition. That made political sense, esp. given that Pavel probably would have refused to remove Řehka. But then Babiš did little to try to prevent Řehka from winning his Senate race against Lucie Kantorová of ANO, which didn't make political sense. Unless of course Babiš knew from a friendly ally that Řehka wasn't to be messed with. In fact, ever since Babiš's first government appointed Řehka to head the NÚKIB cybersecurity office in 2020, Řehka has acted as though he knew he had an Uncle Sam watching over him.