Social Democrats rule out support for new cabinet

The Social Democratic Party has ruled out support for the proposed centre-right government. Following a meeting of the party's executive leadership, party boss Jiri Paroubek said his Social Democrats would not enter into talks on supporting or even tolerating the centre-right coalition government since both its line-up and policy programme were incompatible with his party's priorities.

Party leader Jiri Paroubek on Thursday met with President Klaus and proposed his own solution to the drawn-out political crisis. He said that if the prime minister's second attempt at forming a government failed, his party would be open to negotiations on a coalition between the two strongest parties and the Christian Democrats. He said that in this manner the country could avoid a constitutional crisis.