Lower house to decide on term of chairman election

The lower house of the Czech Parliament should decide on Friday on when the next attempt at electing its speaker will take place. No one has been nominated as yet and the situation from the third and fourth vote, when the deputies met, but the vote did not take place, will repeat on Friday. The leaders of the two largest parties in parliament, Civic Democrat Mirek Topolanek and Social Democrat Jiri Paroubek have said they want to continue negotiating until next week and proceed with the lower house chairman election afterwards. Parliament sources have told the CTK news agency that the lower house meeting could resume on August 11 or 14.

It has been two months since national elections in June resulted in a political stalemate, and efforts at a three-party coalition of the Civic Democrats, the Christian Democrats, and the Greens leave these parties one seat short of a governing majority. In recent days, the second largest party, the Social Democrats, have indicated strong opposition to the three-party coalition, thus rendering its possible government highly unlikely.