Czech Social Democrats´ political mistakes

The Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), which is likely to emerge from the June elections as the strongest party, has in recent weeks made several political mistakes that could lead to some loss of voters' support.

The CSSD scored well with moderate, centrist voters, when it supported the government of Josef Tosovsky on 28 January, making it possible for the government to pass a vote of confidence. Shortly afterwards, however, the CSSD announced that its leader Milos Zeman will be the next prime minister, if the CSSD indeed won the elections. The party also nominated radical Vladimir Spidla and moderate Pavel Rychetsky as deputy prime ministers.

The move seemed to made sense because the CSSD had been suspected it was not ready for governing. It was also aimed at reconciling party radicals with moderates. However, it has not registered well with the public and the media. The CSSD has been criticized for showing too much confidence. The party's most likely coalition partner after the elections, the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL, have not been please either. Being an experienced government party, they know that the composition of a government can be negotiated only after the elections.

No mater how strong the CSSD may be after the elections, it is clear that if it needs a coalition partner it will have to settle for a negotiated compromise. In nominating the next prime minister and two of his deputies, the CSSD gives the impression of being arrogant. This is the kind of behavior that Vacav Klaus's Civic Democrats (ODS) engaged in in the past, driving the KDU-CSL eventually out of the ODS-led coalition.

Another doubtful step by the CSSD was the announcement of its economic priorities after the elections. In putting emphasis on introducing import tariffs on luxury consumer goods and on running a budget deficit, the CSSD triggered a wave of warnings from the country's most respected economists. They argue that should the CSSD want to raise the amounts of money it plans to raise with the help of the import tariffs, it would have introduce import tariffs on virtually all imported goods.

Clearly, such a policy would not be tolerated by the European Union. Average voters will not appreciate expert economic arguments but they will notice a discrepancy between the CSSD's proclaimed pro-EU orientation and defesive economic measures that are bound to provoke a clash with the EU.

Running a budget deficit is, in general, nothing unusual. The CSSD moreover argues that it would use the money to finance improvements in the country's infrastructure and for strategic investments in selected companies. In the Czech Republic, however, the deficit financing could easily produce no long-run benefits. The Czech Republic's market economy is non-transparent, lacking clear rules of the game and well-defined ownership relations. Putting such rules in place trough new legislation will be the primary task of any post-election government. Without such rules, any money coming from the state budget deficit could easily disappear in fraudulent schemes that plague the Czech Republic's economy.

The discrepancy between the CSSD's official pro-European declarations and real policies has manifested itself also in the ongoing parliamentary debate about the composition of the coordination council of the Czech-German discussion forum. The forum is to be set up on the basis of the Czech-German Declaration ratified by the two countries' parliaments last year. In criticizing fiercely the fact that Germany nominated to the forum's coordination council two prominent Sudeten German activists, the CSSD has shown a degree of political immaturity.

While all right-of-center parties, as well as Jewish and freedom-fighters organizations, do not have major problems with the possibility that the Czech Republic's representatives should engage in a democratic discussion even with those Germans with whom they may not agree, the CSSD has threatened to boycott the forum. Such a strategy may please the followers of the far-left Communist Party and the far-right Republican Party but will hardly appeal to moderate voters. Yet, undecided, centrist voters are likely to be those who will decide whether the CSSD will gain more than 30 percent of the popular vote.

The CSSD's mixture of radicalism and moderation stems from the fact that the party leadership is trying to please two different groups of party members--moderate ones and radical ones. As a party that has so far been only in the opposition, the CSSD could until now define itself mainly through what it has disagreed with rather than through a positive program. Formulating such a program appears to be more difficult than the party has expected. However, without offering a moderate, positive program and concrete steps, the CSSD cannot hope to win over moderate voters. And if the CSSD does not manage to do so, its dream of heading the government after the June elections could thus still slip away from it.

Reuters - 11. 2. 1998