How important are the Senate and Municipal elections?

The upcoming municipal and Senate elections will test the real strength of political parties only to some extent. The Senate elections will be held in only one third of the eighty-one Senate districts. Moreover, unlike in electing the parliament's lower chamber (where a proportional electoral system is used), a two-round majority system is used in electing the Senate. That means the personality of each candidate is much more important than in the general elections, where the party affiliation of candidates plays a dominant role.

Opinion polls show that, depending on a district, almost 50% of potential voters will vote for personalities rather than simply for political parties. The fact there is a second round in the Senate elections, during which voters have to chose between the candidates who placed first and second in the first round, makes it even more difficult to see the Senate elections as a simple test of the strength of individual political parties.

In the Senate elections in 1996, for example, candidates of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) of Vaclav Klaus places first in almost all electoral districts. This prompted other parties, including the ODS's coalition partners, to create an informal alliance against the ODS before the second round--a fact that in the end helped non-ODS candidates win in a majority of districts.

Much will again depend on how many voters, and the voters of which parties, will participate in the elections. In 1996, only some 30% of the eligible voters took part in the elections. This year the voter participation is likely to be higher because the Senate elections are held together with municipal elections. Various surveys indicate that about 50% of the eligible voters will participate.

If approximately one half of all voters do not turn out to cast their ballots, the candidates affiliated with the parties whose voters are more disciplined should do better that the candidates of those parties whose voters will vote in smaller numbers. The ODS and the Communists are likely to benefit the most from this effect, as both parties have highly disciplined followers.

On the other hand, the four smaller parties (Civic Democratic Alliance, the Christian Democrats, the Democratic Union, and the Union of Freedom) that have created an electoral alliance could benefit from the fact that their voters will be highly motivated to express their dissatisfaction with the so-called opposition agreement which the ODS and the ruling Social Democrats (CSSD) concluded after the June general elections. Under the agreement, the two parties want to make such changes in the Constitution and the electoral system that would significantly reduce the influence of small parties.

The main theme of the elections will not be a struggle between leftist and rightist parties. Rather, it will be the struggle between the parties that oppose the opposition agreement and the two parties that signed the agreement. The chances of the small parties to prevent the ODS and the CSSD from retaining their constitutional majority in the upper chamber are, however, minimal. The candidates of small parties would have to win in more than a half of the 27 contested districts. The ODS and the CSSD enjoy the combined support of about 60% of Czech voters.

The municipal elections, even more than the Senate elections, test not only the nationwide popularity of political parties but also the strength of the networks of individual parties' local organizations. The Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and the Communists, for example, fared much better in the last municipal elections than they do in general elections because both parties inherited a dense network of local organizations from the communist era. The ODS and the CSSD, both of which were still relatively new parties in 1994, have significantly improved their local organizations network in the last few years. Their chances of doing well in the upcoming elections are, therefore, much better than in 1994.

The showing of individual parties in the municipal elections is not as important as it is in general elections. Unlike on the nation-wide level, parties of very different ideological leanings tend to form coalitions on the local level. After the 1994 elections, parties that did not cooperate on the nation-wide level often formed coalitions on the local level for purely pragmatic reasons.

Such behavior is understandable, since the role of personalities is much more important in local politics than in high politics. Voters, in villages and small towns in particular, often vote for those candidates they know well and whom they trust. This is why independent candidates without any party affiliation fare very well in municipal elections. The politics of creating post-election alliances will be in some ways more important than the overall results of the elections.

Reuters - 4. 11. 1998