"I was approached by Mr Babiš via the internet, that is, he approached more people, and at that time he was saying exactly what small and tiny entrepreneurs wanted to hear, so many people came forward. I was one of the first to join the movement, which eventually grew into a party, but it's still called the movement. I got in as vice-chair for Prague-East. Unfortunately, what was said in 2011, gradually the scissors started to close and the reality was completely different than when we started. So in 2015, I officially stepped down and part of Prague-East with me, so basically Prague-East had to be founded again, the cell, because it broke up. So that was my experience with politics and I will never enter politics again."
"The August occupation, I was just here at the school, like I said, my parents arrived in '64 and they left in '68 and we were supposed to leave about two days after that happened, so I'm... well, I'm, I was thirteen, so I was waiting at the embassy and the first plane I took was to Sofia, so basically as a thirteen-year-old kid I didn't even know exactly what was going on. It's hard to understand when you're taught for thirteen years in school that these are the good guys and the nice guys, and then suddenly they're here and everybody's afraid of them. These kids... few understood why."
"I would only say that in Bohemia at that time, or in Czechoslovakia at that time, the standard of living was much higher than in Bulgaria. In Bulgaria, the income was lower, people lived a poorer life, you could say, but otherwise the Bulgarians are a bit more social than the Czechs, but otherwise people are good and bad everywhere, you know. You can't say that any nation is bad or good... or good, well."
Canka Zemanova Poledníčková was born on 9 October 1954 in Sofia. She grew up in Bulgaria, but between 1964 and 1968 she studied in Prague, where her father worked at the embassy. They left Czechoslovakia shortly after the occupation of the country by Warsaw Pact troops. She went to university in Sofia but finished her studies in Prague, where she went on a scholarship in 1974. She stayed in Prague after graduation and worked as an interpreter and translator. After the Velvet Revolution she founded the first bathroom studio in Czechoslovakia and has been in business ever since. In 2011 she joined the newly formed political movement ANO 2011, but left it in 2015. She is married for the third time and has two sons.
