The week before last, members of the Czech Parliament’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, voted to dissolve this legislative body. The decision was supported by 140 MPs, with 4 voting against. A resolution on self-dissolution requires a constitutional majority – 120 – of the votes. As it was expected, the lower chamber’s dissolution was voted for by lawmakers from the largest opposition force, the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), the TOP 09 party, and the Public Affairs (VV) movement. Shortly before the voting began, MPs from the former ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS) had walked out of the session room.
The self-dissolution of the lower house was put on the agenda after the MPs had passed a vote of no confidence in Jiri Rusnok’s caretaker cabinet. It will be recalled that the caretaker government with Rusnok at the head was sworn in late June 2013. He was appointed by the president of the Czech Republic after a corruption scandal in which the previous Prime Minister Petr Necas was involved. Den wrote about this in the article “‘The ‘Queen’ Brings down the Necas Government” (No. 104 of June 13, 2013). The new Cabinet was formed irrespective of the correlation of political forces in the Czech government. The elections are to be held within the next 60 days. It is up to President Milos Zeman to announce the precise date.
The new crisis has spotlighted differences between the parliamentarians and the media – also in the appraisal of the situation that emerged after parliament’s self-dissolution.
Lukas Jelinek writes in the daily Pravo that it is deplorable that the outgoing Chamber of Deputies Speaker Miroslava Nemcova (ODS) does not realize how thin the parallel between Czechs’ loss of sovereignty in 1968 [when then Czechoslovakia was occupied by Soviet troops] and the developments in 2013 is.
“The country is losing control of itself” now like 45 years ago, Jelinek quotes Nemcova as saying. Then, Soviet tanks took power, now the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies is starting a couple of months of the rule of President Milos Zeman.
It is too much to compare a democratically elected president with the occupiers, Jelinek writes. He writes that there are two sides to every historic event. The opposite pole of the arrival of the tanks was the surge of civic resistance that lasted for one year and it overwhelmed even those who were indifferent to politics before.
Forty-five years ago, however, citizens did not have unfortunately any opportunity to seal their opinion in free elections such as lie ahead of them at the end of October, Jelinek writes.
Elsewhere in Pravo, Jiri Hanak writes that after the Soviet occupation 45 years ago, Communist leader and President Gustav Husak declared absolute intolerance for different opinions, something current politicians have taken over.
It started with Milos Zeman’s stupid bon mot when he said he would have membership cards of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) bound in the skin of their owners, Hanak writes. It continued via former Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek’s (ODS) call for zero tolerance for the Social Democrat (CSSD) government, and it continues until today, on the left as well as on the right, Hanak writes.
Political parties are not opponents or rivals, but enemies, he writes. The Czech Republic used to boast of its democratic traditions, but it is sliding somewhere towards baboons with the acceptance of the “normalization” heritage, Hanak writes. The “normalization” period is a term used in reference to the communist hardliners’ rule after 1968.
Some speeches made in the Chamber of Deputies on August 20 could have made the impression that the twilight of democracy has started in the country, Jiri Leschtina writes in Hospodarske noviny. But is it really so that lawmakers are leaving and an unavoidable era of the Prague Castle usurper (President Milos Zeman) is arriving? Leschtina asks. Over 22 years of a more or less functional democracy, people could have already gotten accustomed to the fact that political developments are more complex and that every election paves the way to the unknown, Leschtina writes.
He writes that self-dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies was no activist excess, but a consequence of a crisis where the parties in parliament were no longer able and willing to rule. They were submerged in corruption scandals that do not affect the government coalition only. They are already starting to threaten the oppositional Social Democrats in the regions, Leschtina writes. Further developments will largely depend on whether people allow themselves to be forced into perceiving the early election as a duel between Zeman’s supporters and opponents with which they would play into the hands of the distorting cult of a politician who has long been beyond the zenith, Leschtina writes.
The latest polls show that the country’s population supports the Czech Social Democratic Party, but it needs a partner to form a coalition government. The Social Democrats favor raising taxes for energy suppliers and the well-to-do as well as introducing the euro as legal tender.
The Day requested Daniel KAISER, political observer of Ludove Noviny, to comment on the situation in the Czech Republic.
“The consequence of parliament’s dissolution is very simple: the Left will win, as expected, but they will most likely do this sooner and with a wider margin. But it is difficult to foresee the precise width of the margin. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Social Democratic party will emerge victorious in the October elections. But it still open to question whether the party of President Milos Zeman’s followers – the Civil Rights Party (SPOZ) – will manage to overcome the five-percent entry barrier. It only gained 4.8 percent in the previous elections.
“Their prospects are better this time. Some of the SPOZ leaders became ministers in a new government two months ago contrary to parliament’s opinion at the insistence of President Zeman. Apparently, the plan is that the government should rule longer to win time and reputation. For this reason, self-dissolution runs counter to their interests.”
Why are the Socialists so popular in the Czech Republic?
“In my opinion, there are three reasons for this. Firstly, they have long been out of power, mainly since 2006. Secondly, the previous government (before July this year) was very unpopular, partly due to a moderate austerity program and partly due to corruption scandals around some of its ministers. Thirdly, the Social Democrats are past masters at social populism.”
Is the situation really so serious that some politicians compare parliament’s self-dissolution with the year 1968?
“I don’t think it is a serious comparison. I agree that the situation is the worst since 1989: President Zeman’s predecessors Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus would have never dared show such disrespect for parliament as he did. But what Zeman has done will have a limited effect – after the elections, parliament will again rule the country. Some presume that Zeman may dominate in the Social Democratic Party after the elections because he is an ally of the party’s No.2 Michal Hasek against its leader Bohuslav Sobotka. But I think that even if Hasek’s wing gets the upper hand, it is unlikely that they will allow the president to lord it over them.
“They are ‘just’ using him in the struggle against the party’s other wing, at least to the extent that he is using them. The Czech Republic is and will remain a parliamentary democracy.”
In what way can the absence of parliament affect the everyday life of people?
“This situation can, in theory, allow energy companies to cash in on ordinary people by raising electricity charges, as they have been doing in the past two years. It is complicated story, but still the previous Cabinet and the lower house of parliament agreed to restrict the profits of energy business. Now the Senate – the upper house of parliament – may overturn this decision. This will be a very unpopular step, so I cannot imagine that they will dare to do so. Otherwise, there are no special problems for everyday life.”
