Social Democrat leader Paroubek in favour of a "political defection" law

Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek would like the country to adopt a law against political "defection". In the northern town of Liberec on Saturday, Mr Paroubek said an example of what he has in mind is legislation from pre-war Czechoslovakia when courts were able to investigate whether a politician joined a different party sincerely or because he was bribed, for example. A politician who left for the latter reason could then have been stripped of his mandate.

Mr Paroubek was reacting to the result of Friday's confidence vote in the lower house. The centre-right coalition won the vote after two Social Democrats left the chamber to give the opposition a majority. Milos Melcak and Michal Pohanka, though, have not "defected" as they are still members of the Social Democratic Party.