The new Czech government

The government of Josef Tosovsky, named by President Vaclav Havel on 2 January, will govern only untilearly elections and, as such, it will have a limited mandate. It will not be able to tackle any large-scale reform projects, such as big privatization projects. At the same time, the government can leave an important mark on Czech politics and society.

It is coming at a time when the public's trust in politics and politicians is abysmally low.The most important cause of this state of affirs is the polical style of the previous coalition government led by Vaclav Klaus. The former prime minister often prefered confrontation to searching for compromises with both the opposition and his party's coalition partners. His government lacked a team-spirit. The Klaus-led three-party coalition became increasingly disjointed, with conflicts among the coalition partners intesifying to the point where the three parties were spending more energy on mutual bickering than on formulatng and carrying out coherent goverment policies.

One cause behind the intra-coalition conflicts was what President Havel has repeatedly decribed as excessive partisanship. Czech political parties are small in memberships but--in the absence of a developed civil society and some other democratic institutions and mechanisms that are common in the West--have basically "owned" the state. After the Klaus government collapsed at the end of November, it became quickly apparent that the crisis cannot be solved by the parties alone. Instead of looking for a common solution that would, for a time being, put partisan interests at leat partly aside, parties mostly insisted on their particular interests.

The naming of Tosovsky, a non-partisan, was one of the few ways out of the crisis. The government he put together is partly based on political partisan and partly on non-partisans. The main criterion in naming the ministers was their expertise, rather than their party membership. Keeping some of the ministers from the Klaus government is important especially for the sake of continuity. It is clear that the governmnt is only a temporary one. A government consisting entirely of newcomers woud be luxury under such circumstances, as all of its members would spend the first several months learning how to govern. In the Tosovsky government, the non-partisan newcomers will be able to accelerate this learning process by being able to work together with experienced ministers.Tosovsky himself may benefit from the fact that all three of his deputy prime ministers are experienced government politicians.

The government, as it is composed, should be able to present a better political style than the previous government. Tosovsky is a non-confrontational man who will be looking for political consensus. The members of his cabinet will be less divided by partisan interests that the members of the Klaus government. The government's program, if approved, should not come under too much attack, mainly because all parties will view the government as mainly leading the country toward early elections. Such elections now seem to be preferred by all major political parties. They differ only when it comes to the date of the elections. While some parties prefer June 1998, other prefer November.

Some politicians, including Klaus, have suggested that the composition of the Tosovsky government does not respect the results of the last elections. Klaus has even said that such a solution bypasses the constitution. In fact, a government consisting of party members and non-partisans is a fully constitutional solution. The Czech Constitution does prescribe the president which criteria he has to use in naming a new prime minister. It is, however, assumed that immediately after the elections the president shouldname the chairman of the victorious party to form a government. At the same time, the president should name such a prime minister--and , at his suggestion, the whole government--that have a reasonable chance of passing a vote of confidence in the parliament.

After the Klaus-led coalition collapsed in November, the presidnet could hardly fulfill both assumptions. The Klaus government itself was very fragile. It was originally a minority government formed only with a tacit approval of the opposition parties. It eventually gained a majority support faer two deputies left the opposition Social Democrats, but it was never stable. After the coalition collapsed, no other political solution could be found that could be possibly approved by the parliament; in particular, after both former junior coalition parties stated clearly that they would not enter into a coalition with the Klaus-led Civic Democratic Party (ODS). The last chance that the former coalition could be revived was buried at the ODS congress in December, which reelected Klaus as the party leader.

The Tosovsky government has a good chance of passing the vote of confidence if it clearly defines early elections as its main priority. Under such circumstances, it will be supported by the CSSD. The major Czech political parties, however, must first agree on how to reach early elections. That may be difficult and complicate the vote of confidence.

Reuters - 7. 1. 1998