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Current AffairsUpcoming Civic Democrat party congress might stall government negotiations
Three weeks after general elections, three centre-right parties are still
holding talks on forming a coalition government. On Friday, the leader of
the strongest party, the Civic Democrats, is set to inform President
Václav Klaus on the progress made so for, and might even leave those talks
as prime minister designate. But the Civic Democrats are holding a crucial
congress over the weekend that could change everything.
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Current AffairsCzech Christian Democrats at a crossroads
The recent Czech general elections saw voters swing away from the
established parties in favour of newcomers. One of the traditional parties
that got left out in the cold were the Christian Democrats, who received
just 4.4 percent of the vote, falling short of the 5 percent threshold
required for seats in Parliament. Radio Prague spoke to political analyst
Vít Hloušek from Brno’s Masaryk University, and asked him what led to
the party’s decline.
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Current AffairsPreferential votes turn party ballots upside down
In the Czech general elections, voters shook up the political scene by
turning away from the major parties and supporting newcomers. But the
change did not stop there: in a new phenomenon of Czech politics, thousands
of preferential votes sent many of the old, familiar faces in the lower
house home, to be replaced by outsiders from the bottom of party’s
ballots.
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Current AffairsVoters shake-up status quo, pave way for government of “fiscal responsibility”
In the final weeks ahead of the election, polling agencies in the country
repeatedly predicted a major win for Jiří Paroubek’s Social Democrats
but the reality at the weekend was different. The Social Democrats did come
first, but only barely, far from the overwhelming success they had
expected. Within hours of the polls closing, it became clear that the party
had a marginal chance of forming the next government and that instead the
country was now headed for a centre-right coalition promising wide-reaching
reforms.
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Current AffairsPublic Affairs party remains a mystery to many
One of the winners of these elections and a newcomer to Parliament, the
Public Affairs party, clearly owes its success to its leader Radek John, a
former TV journalist who is a household name in the Czech Republic. His
investigative programme on commercial TV NOVA focused on uncovering
corruption, something the party has promised to do in top politics as well.
However, aside from its self-proclaimed role of watchdog, the party’s
background and ambitions remain unclear even to its potential coalition
partners. I spoke to political analyst Vladimíra Dvořáková and first
asked her what made Public Affairs so appealing to voters.
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