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Current AffairsKarolína Peake says her new political force is here to stay
Just two years ago the name Karolína Peake was known to few people outside
of the issue of playgrounds in Prague 1. Today she’s the keystone in the
fractured coalition government. Last week, the 36-year-old deputy prime
minister caused an upheaval in the government when she abandoned the junior
coalition party Public Affairs, of which she has been a member since 2007,
and took eight of the party’s MPs with her. The result of the split has
been the departure of Public Affairs from government to the opposition, and
a wafer-thin majority in Parliament for the centre-right reform parties.
That majority is based entirely on the newly emerging party around Mrs.
Peake, which at present can only be called the Public Affairs defectors. Is
this the start of a new political organisation with long-term goals, or a
quick fix intended to allow the government to ride out the next two years,
that’s the first question we put to Karolína Peake on Thursday. More
Current AffairsCzech government’s future remains uncertain after party split
The fate of the centre-right Czech government hangs in the balance after
the junior coalition party Public Affairs split up, robbing the government
of its comfortable majority in the lower house. The newly emerging
pro-government faction around defector Karolína Peake is now trying to
rally enough deputies to secure a viable majority in the lower house, but
the key players on the Czech political scene are already preparing for
early elections. More
Current AffairsPeake quits Public Affairs
Influential politician Karolína Peake dropped a political bombshell late
Tuesday when she announced that she was leaving the smallest party in
government to found a new faction. The move has cast doubt on whether the
centre-right coalition still has a majority in the lower house needed to
govern. More
Current AffairsPirate Parties in Prague set sails for Europe-wide political success
Cue: Pirates of the World, Unite! – that was the message at this
weekend’s Pirate Party International meeting in Prague, the third in the
organisation’s history and the first in the Czech capital. What started
as a Swedish protest movement against the criminalisation of file-sharing
has grown into a tangible political body, setting its sights on
continent-wide success in the 2014 European Parliament elections. More
Current AffairsPundit: Public Affairs has no future with or without Vít Bárta
The leadership of the junior coalition party Public Affairs is meeting to
debate the outcome of last week’s trial in which the party’s informal
leader Vít Bárta was found guilty of bribery. Although Mr. Bárta had
promised to pull out of high politics if he did not clear his name, he now
says he’ll keep his seat in the lower house and he thus remains a member
of the party’s deputies’ club. Radio Prague asked commentator Jiří
Pehe for his thoughts on how this latest development may impact the
government’s future and who is now actually running the smallest party in
government. More
Current AffairsLatest storm in coalition government leaves junior party weakened and divided
The storm that threatened to bring down the centre-right Czech government
appears to be over, but it has left Public Affairs, the junior coalition
party that started it, badly battered. As Public Affairs leaders went back
to the negotiating table to debate what appear to be face-saving
concessions, the smallest party in government fielded questions from
reporters about the deepening split in party ranks. More
Current AffairsPublic Affairs put themselves and the government on the edge of collapse
The Czech government is teetering on collapse as the junior coalition
party, Public Affairs, has said it will pull out unless a number of major
concessions are met. Reactions to the demands from its coalition partners
were no less than furious, and even if the party backs down - as it has on
similar occasions – it seems that either the coalition or Public Affairs
itself will soon collapse under the tension. Christian Falvey has this
report: More
Current AffairsAnalyst: early elections not to advantage of any of the coalition parties
The latest flare-up between Public Affairs and the two senior parties Civic
Democrats and TOP 09 appears to have taken the continued existence of the
centre-right cabinet to the very brink. Are we close to early elections or
did the smallest party in government, in trying to gain concessions, simply
overplay its hand? More
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