Prague has caught the Kiev disease: Paralysis of government continues

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The lingering paralysis that struck Ukraine’s political system right after the March parliamentary elections has now affected the Czech Republic, whose shattered political health is giving rise to increasingly big concern among local observers. 

Already two months have passed since the June 3 parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic – elections narrowly won by the right-wing Civic Democratic Party – but they in Prague are still unable to form a new government and to elect the parliamentary presidency. As many as six failures to elect the parliamentary speaker are already a serious symptom of political crisis. The key stumbling block in the matter is 100/100 seat ratio between the right-wing: the Civic Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the “Greens” and the left-wing: the Social Democrats and the Communists – a stalemate the Czech politicians have proved unable to overcome for over two months already despite constant talks, consultations, intrigues and backstage deals. Even the patriarch of the Czech politics, President Vaclav Klaus, with his big authority and experience, can’t help the Civic Democrats to unclog the deeply-clogged gear of the Czech politics.    

In the meantime, ill-wishers say that the Czech President is maneuvering so artfully not because he is so eager to bring his country out of the deadlock. They say he is just making advances to the Social Democrats with a view to increase his political capital for further reelection. In any case, all the efforts by the Civic Democrats to form a government together with the Christian Democrats and the “Greens” are being neatly torpedoed by the Social Democrats, who are, thereby, kind of revenging themselves for their formal defeat during the June parliamentary elections.

But even though the political crisis in the Czech Republic is already becoming much too long — almost as indecently long as in Ukraine — the local strongest parties, the Civic Democrats and the Social Democrats, appear to be not very much interested in early parliamentary elections (even though experts say they are inevitable). Even more, once bitter enemies, Civic Democratic leader Mirek Topolanek and Social Democratic leader Jiri Paroubek, are beginning to meet increasingly often. And even though neither of them is willing to say what exactly they are talking about, the very fact of their contacts proves that the two biggest Czech parties are seeking to reconcile and to form a government through some compromise – especially as there has already been such a precedent in the not-so-very-long post-Communist history of the Czech Republic.

However, in exchange for the Social Democrats’ support of their government, the Civic Democrats will have not only to seriously revise their program but also to sacrifice their junior coalition partners, the Christian Democrats and the “Greens.” This will turn their June success into a kind of Pyrrhic victory, while the Social Democrats will feel revenged for their June defeat. Czech political experts say that under such scenario many small parties will find themselves outside the real politics, and this may lead to growing confrontation in the Czech society. 

The growing role of the Social Democrats in the Czech politics will have tangible internal political consequences, especially in the light of the US’ plans to deploy its missile defense base in the Czech Republic. Unlike the Civic Democrats and the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats are much more skeptical about these plans and believe them possible only after wide public debates. Meanwhile, the last public surveys have shown that 80% of the Czechs do not want to have a US military base deployed in their territory.