In voting Oct. 27–28, the ODS picked up six new Senate seats, giving it 41 of the house's 81 slots. The party's main rival, the Social Democrats (ČSSD), picked up five new seats — but they only had six going into the polls.

No other political party managed to add to its seats: The Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) still have 11, the Communists two and the European Democrats four.

Overall, the ODS took 51 percent of the vote to the ČSSD's 21 percent at the weekend's polls. The KDU-ČSL came in third, with 11 percent.

Voter turnout was the third-lowest in the country's history, with 21 percent of the population casting ballots, according to press reports.

The closest result came in Chrudim, east Bohemia, where KDU-ČSL Senator Petr Pithart defeated the ODS's Jana Fischerová by just 24 votes.

Despite the ODS's performance, the ČSSD seems in higher spirits now than it did after the election's first round Oct. 20–21, during which many of its candidates took a pounding. In the second round, the ČSSD went head-to-head with the ODS in 11 districts, and won six of them.

That somewhat strengthens the position of ČSSD Chairman and former Prime Minister Jiří Paroubek. While he is backing away from previous calls for new elections early next year, he now proposes a grand coalition between the ČSSD and the ODS in Parliament, a marriage similar to the one governing, with debatable success, in Germany at the moment.

"The ČSSD is actually celebrating its gain of five seats," says Alexander Mitrofanov, a political commentator for the Czech daily Právo. "It seems that the grand coalition is now Paroubek's priority."

The Senate serves the same function as the one in the U.S. Congress: namely to vote on measures that have passed the lower house of the legislature, the Chamber of Deputies here. A majority in the upper house eliminates the need for the ODS to form coalitions to pass its agenda.

It now seems likely that more ODS-favored legislation — the party differs from the ČSSD on matters such as pension and healthcare reform — will reach the desk of President Václav Klaus, himself honorary ODS chairman.

Beyond that, the party can point to its recent election performance and demand a second chance at forming a government, a task at which both parties have failed since a general election in June delivered a divided Chamber of Deputies.

Political observers widely expect Klaus to tap another ODS candidate to be the country's new prime minister in the next week, though not likely party Chairman Mirek Topolánek. Topolánek already had his shot at the job, but failed last month to win a vote of confidence in the Chamber for his government.

It seems that Klaus himself can now sleep soundly at night after the ODS win: The party holds 141 of the 281 seats in both houses of Parliament, enough to guarantee his re-election in 2008, Mitrofanov says.