Elections

The results put simply: The angry president and founding father of the ODS left the party, the critique of the present lead and the ally of Klaus Pavel Bem lost as well, Mirek Topolanek was re-elected the ODS leader, and promised he is going to redeem himself.

The most visible change is the new vice-leader of the party, until now unknown 37-yo David Vodrážka, the Mayor of Prague 13. The Congress continued from Friday to Sunday, with the founder Klaus they grew apart definitely after 10 pm of the last day, when the party decided to support the Lisbon Treaty. That moves some state responsibilities to Brussels, which is something Klaus can’t come to terms with.

If we look at it closely, that wasn’t a battle of ideas, more like victory of reason. Even, when a part of the ODS don’t want Topolanek in the lead, they very well realize to change the leader, which is a prime minister at the same time, and to risk government fall in the moment the CR is going to Organize chairmanship of the EU. Topolanek won with 285/500 votes.

The congress of ODS starts today. Delegates vote for the new ODS leader, and choosing the final stance to the Lisbon treaty as well as to the lost elections. Those 500 ODS delegates are definitely going to think about what to do after the voters demonstrated they want less pro-reformist governmnet. At the occasion is going to appear even the honorary president Vaclav Klaus, who supports Pavel Bem and vice versa – if we look at Bem’s program, it looks like we would read Klaus’s declaration.

The two rivals have priorities, which they want to put through.

Mirek Topolanek
To keep the coalition government to the elections in 2010, but to modify it personally a bit.
To finish the health, pensioner and judicial reform
To continue in reducing company taxes
To lower the deficiency in state budget
To bind the parliamentaries to ratify Lisbon treaty

Pavel Bem
The coalition government have to demise, their operation is discreditable
To ask the president to nominate minority ODS government
To concentrate on early elections, which would be a referendum about the need of real reforms
To bind the parliamentarians and ODS senators to refuse the Lisbon treaty and to start negotiating about a new one.
To keep the original program of ODS (Klaus-wise)

The ODS votes the new chairman this weekend. And the current one is of another two steps closer to be re-elected again, meanwhile his rival, Pavel Bem, seems to be more far than ever. A week before the Sunday election, which will decide the new leader of ODS, Topolanek was supported by ODS in Vysocina, South Moravia and Liberec region. Topolanek is, right now, the leader who is probably going to stay with the ODS until next elections.

Mirek Topolanek now reflects the heavy critique of Bem and his big ally Vaclav Klaus. Those two blame him for the loss in regional elections and support of Lisbon treaty. Klaus even threatens to leave the ODS, which he founded. The ODS went to the worst crisis since 1997. STEM agency made a research, finding out the biggest problem was the too-much-right-of-a-programme, arrogance and failure to keep promises.

After 19 years the communist party wasn’t allowed to do legislative they return to power at two regions, where they will govern with CSSD. In the Moravian-Slezko the CSSD led by Jaroslav Palas, who is ‘an ex-communist’ himself, agreed with the communists they will parcel the chairs 8:3. We can see return of old communist politicians, like RSDr. Svatomir Recman (RSDr means he studied communist politics at the university.)

The joint of CSSD and the KSCM (Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia) aroused sharp reactions. The Opava ODS member Zbynek Stanjura said the regional government is now under communist management, meaning decay.

The election was accompanied by the Young Conservatives and the representatives of Political Prisoners Confederation, stating: Paroubek told us we will get used to commies. Let him know we will never get.”

After the Civic Democrats sustained the crushing defeat in regional and senate elections, the party is looking for a new leader. Even when Pavel Bem lately resisted many speculations he should be the leader of ODS with reasoning he really enjoys being the Mayor of Prague, the time has changed and beside Evzen Tosenovsky, there is no other person so popular in the party.

Bem officially accepted his nomination yesterday and in six weeks, at the December meeting he is going to face Mirek Topolanek. Bem has a powerful ally – the president Vaclav Klaus, who agrees with him being the new leader of the ODS.

Evzen Tosenovsky, on the other hand, has the reputation of a non-conflict person, also he doesn’t played his part on the debacle of ODS, like Bem did as the vice-chairman. One question remains – even when the party finds the lamb in Topolanek, is it going to change anything in the parliamentary elections in 2010?

The voters came, voted and decided they want change. Again, the elections ended by a crushing win of the Social Democrats (CSSD) in the whole republic, except for Prague. CSSD won in 23 from the total 26 districts, it total they will have 29 senators. ODS won in 3 Prague districts, it lost six chairs, altogether it will have 35 senators. KDU-CSL has seven, KSCM 3, SZ 1, the rest parties have 5.

And meanwhile the Social Democrats spend the weekend celebrating and looking for the best word for describing their success (the most taken was ‘epochal’) the Civic Democrats debated about separating the function of the ODS leader and the Prime minister. In other words – how to make Mirek Topolanek leave the lead of ODS. But if he wasn’t the Prime Minister, the government wouldn’t probably last.

1.Topolanek’s governmend got important votes from the turn-coats. This behaviour, which also helped re-election of Klaus, the court labelled as political corruption.

2.The Radar matter was never effectively explained, thanks to propaganda of also Russian secret service the public hate it now, but ODS never took care about it.

3.Political scandals – corruption, abusing of state money, also not able to deal with scandals within the ODS.

4.Delaying of Euro – thanks to it and strong crown have thousands of companies existential troubles.

5.Payments for health service – were introduced withut differences for everyone, again without communicating it effectively

6.Less money for families with kids, less money for the sick. Higher taxes.

7.Topolanek’s public behaviour – even when a good prime minister, he behaves completely arrogant to the public.
Source: denik

He gets criticized by the country marshals who lost their positions. CSSD won crushingly in regional elections by 13:0. Topolanek got from the unshakable position into being taken to go to hell. He is being blamed for the debacle in the regional elections, now also Vaclav Klaus has indirectly kicked him, too. Klaus said: “The voters wanted a change. But I have a bad feeling from the victims of this wish have became the country marshals, who had been doing a good job.”

Topolanek has objected, the country marshals have their piece of responsibility, because they have put through their project of no central campaign, and in the case of many there was hardly any campaign at all.

Beside Topolanek, the most criticized person was Julinek with his health reform. Even when everybody know we do not live in socialism and free health care is utopia, he wasn’t able to communicate it to the people in the way they could accept it, and his arrogance cost ODS a lot.

Prague is the only district, which kept their ODS at lead. The crushing loss which ODS achieved in these regional elections bring the old question back – Is Bem going to work as the Prague Mayor as long as possible, or is he going to change it for the highest Czech politics?

ODS really got a piece of voter’s mind this time. How to get out of the trouble before the parliamentary elections? One solution is clearly visible: to replace Mirek Topolanek in the lead by Pavel Bem.

Meanwhile Prague ODS discuss silently about promoting Bem, Bem himself doesn’t want to talk about it, he has never wanted to. But it is very imaginable that if he challenged Topolanek, at the upcoming ODS meeting, he could get enough votes. Than, the new Prague Mayor would be probably Blazek, with Bem as the ODS leader.

CSSD smashed ODS in regional elections by the 13:1 rate. The only region where ODS vindicated their position is Prague, the rest is led by the Social Democrats now. The weekend elections confirmed what we knew for a few months – the reforms ODS initiated, the radar matter and in recent weeks the Tlusty-Morava case, the ODS founder president Klaus shouting nonsenses every time he has a chance made their part – ODS have dropped record-breakingly.

On the other hand, CSSD under the iron-fist leading of Paroubek is united as it has never been before. Jiri Paroubek can celebrate his big triumph. They are going openly against the unpopular health charges, and they openly disagree with Klaus. They seem as a party that care more about people needs, than the needs of the country as a whole, so there will be increasing of state benefits and National debt.

October elections to regional councils are going to be a dramatic one. Both the biggest parties, the government ODS and opposite CSSD would gain, according to the Centre for opinion pool research, the very same number of votes – 28,8%.

KSCM would get votes from 16 percent of voters, the People’s party 8% and the Greens 7%. From those who can, about 54% would come to vote.

The pools related to the local governments differ from the parliamentary election. There is CSSD in the lead, it has been there for about a year.

The local government elections take place together with the first round of the senate elections on Friday 17th and on Saturday 18th October.

Bursik successfully survived the greatest rupture in his party. Dana Kuchtova’s rebellion brought even more sympathies for Martin Bursik, as he proved to work effectively under pressure. He not only won his chair, he also re-occupied the seats in the lead of the Greens, this time with his allies. The vice-leader became the Education Minister Ondrej Liska, the other heads became Katerina Jacques and Martin Ander.

Bursik’s challenger, the ex-chairman and ex-Education minister of the Greens, Dana Kuchtova, lost in candidacy on the leader and also in candidacy for the vice-leader.

Bursik have left nothing to chance, and gained one important advantage in advance; he travelled the Czech Republic and founded about 50 base groups of the Greens. The 50 new representatives decided the vote.

Bursik didn’t stopped at getting his post, he also needed to assure a similar situation won’t repeat. So he achieved one more thing – a few minutes before the end of the meeting, he call away about one third of the council, basically he not only gained new supporters, he also got rid of those against.

The way Martin Busik, in similar way as Mirek Topolanek, managed in the time crisis, shows up how they will behave when there will be a real state crisis. In satisfactory way.

Today, the special congress of the Greens, where they will vote for the new chairman, have started. Who are the sides? On one side Martin Bursik, who got the party to the parliament, and who shook hand with Dali Lama. On the other side there is Dana Kuchtova, the leader of South Bohemian Mothers, the person who unsuccessfully tried to be the education minister for a few months.

Who is going to be the next leader? Bursik have left nothing to chance, and gained one important advantage in advance; he travelled the Czech Republic and founded about 50 base groups of the Greens. Those 50 new groups have a chance to influence voting by sending their deputy to the elections.

In those cases, I like to look at betting offices and their betting rates. They are usually the easiest source, if you want to know the future. And they bet at Bursik.

The Median agency initiated a pool to find out, who should be the new leader of the Greens. Nearly 1,100 people participated in the poll with the outcome: most of the public asked would like the present vice chairwoman Dana Kuchova to be the new leader of the Greens. But the important thing is those who voted for the Greens in Previous elections would like to keep the present chairman an Environment Minister Martin Bursik at the lead government.

The reason why the public wants the change may be, the Greens under Bursik got some serious responsibilities, like the post of the Education minister and the Foreign minister. To replace the leader would mean the Greens could lose what they achieved, and so those who are not in favour of the Green Party want them to.

The Green Party present the ‘middle wing’ political thinking. The former president Havel votes for them.

Median Agency conducted a month poll, from May to June, trying to find out, who is the voters’ preference for the parliamentary elections. 1,188 respondents older than 18 years of age answered the question, showing the Social Democrats would swap the roles with ODS – this time it would be the CSSD, who would narrowly win.

CSSD would get 36.5 percent of the votes, while ODS only 32.3 percent. Members of the Christian Democratic party KDU-CSL would be the only other party which would get seats in the lower house, passing the 5-percent limited by 2 points. That wouldn’t be the case of the Green party which would end with 4.9 percent of the votes, but this may not be completely accurate.

The unusually direct strike against the ruling ODS came from the ex-president Vaclav Havel this weekend. Havel is no longer politically active, this was one of the few political declarations he has made with some emphasis in the past five years.

Prague is the base of ODS, the Civic Democratic Party, the Prague mayor is a ODS member, too, why we should change it? “… I can’t think of anything else than to recommend to Prague citizens, not to vote for the party, which has ruled in Prague for so long, and which has allowed and done so much ill, in the incoming elections.” Havel wrote for LN on Saturday.

What is the biggest problem? For Havel, it is the way ODS wants to change supporting system of Prague theatres in a way, which would in the end mean commercialization of the repertoire. Other criticized deeds were the candidacy for Olympic Games, because Prague has major problems with traffic, in comparison with no projects of Prague growth that goes unlimited without services for the locals.

Vaclav Klaus has won in the knife-edge indirect vote, which has been far from dignified. Just a reflection of Czech Political Culture, in which we live.

We have Klaus for president – a devotedly europhobic president of a EU country which organizes Chairmanship of the EU in 2009. We have a president whose economic skills brought tunneling of the 90’s, and he determines the leaders of the National Bank. A president, who has always put his opinions first. Like when he claims global warming and diseases from passive smoking are just a nonsense.

The world watched the elections and commented; BBC described the vote itself as “marred by threats, bribes and corruption.” and the negotiation ways as “the mafia-style pressure tactics” no wonder. Five ministers reported to get threatening letters, one with a bullet and black powder inside; the first day of elections changed from a dignified ceremony into a street feud, where everyone blamed everyone. At the end, one congressman was threatened on the toilets by an unknown man, after which he got heart stroke and was hospitalized, other two collapsed under the pressure.

The best comment I red was the one by J. X. Dolezal; “At the beginning, one congressman collapsed, than one another started to feel sick, and than also one senator; and at the end about two million people who watched the live broadcast started to feel sick, too, and the representatives went home.”

But I personally accept, Klaus can fascinate his fans; if somebody was born in 1990, he was already born in a country where Klaus has a strong position; and Klaus is still here to be with us. Strong in position for 23 years.

Vaclav Klaus received support of 141 deputies and senators. He needed 140 votes to be re-elected. He was elected in the second vote, on 15th February 2008, for another five years. Being a founder, he had support of the leading ODS Civic Democratic party.

His opponent, Czech-American economist, Jan Svejnar gained 111 votes. He was nominated by the SZ Green Party, and got votes from them and the CSSD Social Democrats. A third candidate, Jana Bobosikova, nominated by the communist party, lacking support, dropped the race before the voting begun.

If Vaclav Klaus watches the courses at betting agencies, he could have started celebrating; The agencies has lowered the courses for Klaus’ win, now they are on their lowest level in history – 1,1:1. In the betting language it means Klaus is right before being elected.

Jan Svejnar was an outsider of the elections from the very beginning, but still he has done everything to interest the public and to get into sub-consciousness of people. He can pay interest on this capital; he would be perfect in Czech Senate, there will also be many positions needed to take up in approaching Czech EU Chairmanship in 2009. There will be many possibilities opening, we can only guess, which he will finally take, it probably won’t be the one to come back to the US.

Thinking about Jana Bobosikova? There is not a chance she would be elected, but the communist party needs her for their strategy; they even straightforwardly say they just use her to have the other parties negotiating with them. Bobsikova doesn’t mind though; she has her own EU ministry’s post defending ahead, for which it is necessary to be seen.

Postscript : Vaclav Klaus was elected the president today.

The communist party boycotted the presidential elections on Saturday. As they expected, the price of their votes is raising, now when the second round comes. They are willing to vote for Jan Svejnar, but only under certain conditions.

“Jan Svejnar can get all our votes, if the Social Democrats and the Green Party promises, they won’t support the contract of building the American Radar base in the Czech Republic.” the chairman of Czech communists said to MF Dnes.

The Communists put their price quite high, they enjoy being the index hand. And for the case Svejnar refuses? They have their own own candidate, our Euro representative Jana Bobosikova. It is clear that if they will vote for her, the president will be Vaclav Klaus. But Klaus probably doesn’t need it – if the situation repeats, he needs only one vote more to be elected the president again.