Ambivalent results of Czech elections

The most important result of the general elections in the Czech Republic on 19-20 June was the failure of the far-right Republicans and the populist Pensioners' Party to win seats in the parliament. Such a result is surprising not only because the Republican Party had seemed to have a very stable core of voters but also because opinion polls had indicated that a majority of Czech voters were disappointed, or even disgusted, with politics and politicians. Some commentators had predicted that the Republicans could wi more than ten percent of the vote.

Yet, a large majority of Czech voters decided to vote responsibly--that is, for mainstream democratic parties. The failure of the Pensioners was less surprising than the failure of the Republicans. The former is a one-issue party, whose ideas were partly appropriated by mainstream parties before the elections. The Republicans, too, did not succeed partly because all mainstream parties had taken over some of the Republicans' traditional demands, such as emphasis on law, transparency, and anti-corruption measures. They probably also paid a price for a rather primitive electoral campaign, in which they narrowed their objectives to a few slogans.

While, on the one hand, Czech voters rejected some forms of extremism, many of them at the same time apparently decided to ignore dubious financial practices of some parties as well as reports of possible political corruption. The Civic Democratic Party (ODS) of Vaclav Klaus, whose popularity dropped to some ten percent in December, following revelations about dubious party financing practices, bounced back strongly in the elections, winning almost 28 percent of the popular vote.

It seems that many voters simply decided that giving their votes to a well-organized right-of-center party is more important than ethical questions. This was partly due to Vaclav Klaus's strategy of portraying the elections as a decisive struggle between reforms and leftist forces that would take the country back in time. "The fear factor" played an important role in the electoral campaign, helping to split to polarize the electorate into roughly two equally large camps.

Such a split of the electorate, however, produced an electoral deadlock. Although the coalition of right-of-center parties--the ODS and the Union of Freedom (US)--with the centrist Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) could form a majority government, supported by 102 deputies in the 200-member lower chamber of the parliament, such a coalition would amount to recreating the coalition that collapsed last November. Unless such a coalition would adopt a different style of work, the KDU-CSL, in particular, would find it hard to explain to its voters why it had to leave the Klaus government in November.

The US, too, would have a hard time to justify its presence in such a coalition. After all, the party was formed by some former ODS politicians after they left the ODS in protest against financial scandals in the party and the leadership of Vaclav Klaus. It is very likely that the US would demand that Klaus be not the prime minister again. This is, however, totally unacceptable for the ODS, which is basically now the party of Vaclav Klaus. In fact, the ODS's election campaign was centered on Klaus, not on the party.

Forming a grand coalition between the Social Democrats (CSSD), who won the elections with 32 percent of the vote, the KDU-CSL, and the US is also not very likely. While the centrist KDU-CSL would not be opposed to such a coalition, the US is not likely to change its view that cooperating with the CSSD is not possible due to ideological differences. CSSD chairman Milos Zeman, who has been asked by President Havel to lead negotiation onf orming a government, will find it very difficult to come up with a workable formula.

Should Zeman fail in the first round, Klaus will, most likely, be asked to take over talks on forming a government. Unless the ODS makes significant concessions to the KDU-CSL and the US, including possibly the agreement that Klaus would not be the prime minister, such a coalition is also very unlikely.

The two small parties apparently hope that in the third round of talks they could form a core of the next government and win support from some other party, most likely the CSSD. They may, however, be underestimating their political opponents. Humiliated Zeman and Klaus could easily form a tactical coalition, which would have enough votes to change both the constitution and the electoral law. They could argue that such a coalition is being created for the sake of the country's stability. In reality, it would be am alliance whose main objective would be to defeat, once and for all, the two largests parties' political opponents.

Reuters - 24. 6. 1998