Hašek comes out against Sobotka day after election

Deputy leader of the Social Democratic Party, Michal Hašek, had strong words for the party’s chairman Bohuslav Sobotka on Sunday, saying that if he had secured such a poor result in the election he would have resigned. Mr Hašek was referring to the party’s somewhat Pyrrhic victory at the weekend which left the Social Democrats with only 20.5 percent of the vote (far less than the 30 percent sought by the current leader).

Mr Hašek, long a potential challenger to Mr Sobotka and a politician with close ties to the current president, Miloš Zeman, spoke to the Czech News Agency about the result and compared the situation to three-and-a-half years ago when the party secured a similarly weak victory and then-party leader Jiří Paroubek wasted no time in stepping down.

Mr Sobotka responded on Sunday by saying he intended to hold coalition talks with the Christian Democrats and ANO 2011, and saying he was in favour of an extraordinary leadership convention being held in March of 2014.

Author: Jan Velinger