Workers Party faces possible ban

For the second time in less than a year, the government is attempting to officially ban the far-right Workers Party (DS), as the Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) in Brno took up the case Jan. 11.

Some experts see the proceedings as a prelude to a more problematic attempt to ban the much more popular Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), raising questions of whether banning political parties is an effective way to combat extremism.

The government case seeks to connect the DS with far-right violence, while DS leader Tomáš Vandas insists his party - despite its openly racist rhetoric - operates within the bounds of the law.

"I understand the desire to connect our party with all the violence and violations of law that occur in the Czech Republic. Perhaps we are also responsible for floods and drought," Vandas told The Prague Post.

"We are a political party, not a terrorist organization. Each time the media denigrate us, our popularity increases."

Even as Vandas tries to distance his party from right-wing violence, events paint a somewhat different picture with the most obvious example a November 2008 melee in Litvínov, north Bohemia. The DS organized a march to coincide with another rally by the far-right Autonomous Nationalists. Both groups targeted the Janov housing project, where most residents are Roma. Chaos and clashes with police ensued. The incident was followed by similar events in Krupka, Chomutov and Bílina in the following months. 

But the question remains whether the DS centrally planned the violence and whether a ban on the party would do anything to discourage such incidents, even if it is ineffective in countering the party's discriminatory ideology.

Roma rights activist Gwendolyn Albert supports banning the DS "because we are in the Czech Republic and Central Europe, places that have not fully come to terms with the Holocaust and totalitarianism and how those things came about."

"It is clear to me that the Workers Party is clearly aiming to cultivate the same kind of vigilante approach to public order that occurred in Germany in the 1930s," she added.

Vandas does play the part of a right-wing populist in the mold of fascists from an earlier era. Among those he most often targets during public appearances are corrupt "government bureaucrats" and people that he terms "elite."

"The current elite are haughtily accustomed to having their way and now feel threatened," he said.

Vandas also advocates deporting immigrants, ending asylum practices, reinstating the death penalty, banning same-sex marriages and requiring all birth certificates and ID cards include a person's ethnic origins. In receiving just over 1 percent of the vote in the June 2009 European Parliamentary elections, the DS received 760,000 Kč in public financing.  

An ongoing battle

The initial attempt to ban the DS in March 2009 was widely seen as a half-hearted attempt by the embattled government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, with the government's case overseen by controversial Interior Minister Ivan Langer.

Langer's case against the DS was only a few pages long, in contrast with current Interior Minister Martin Pecina approaching the court with a 70-page proposal to ban the party with 85 addendums.

"Pecina seems to be taking it a lot more seriously," Albert said.

Also in contrast with the previous attempt to ban the party, was that on the opening day of court hearings Jan. 11 only 10 or so DS supporters rallied outside the courthouse. In the courtroom, journalists outnumbered DS loyalists.

"It is one of the demands of the court for the government to prove the DS presents an imminent danger to democracy and that banning them is a way of preventing it," Pecina said.

While Pecina is quick to list ways that he and Prime Minister Jan Fischer's government have taken steps to combat right-wing extremism, there have been surprisingly few successful criminal prosecutions of members of far-right parties in recent years. Asked why that is, Pecina said, "That is a question for the police."

Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb is another advocate of banning the DS. He is also spearheading an attempt to ban the KSČM. In December, a group of senators asked Fischer's government to petition the NSS to ban the Communists as well. Unlike the DS - which has no representatives in regional or national governments - the KSČM is the Czech Republic's third most popular party, drawing 13 percent of the vote in the most recent parliamentary elections in 2006.

"There is a huge difference," Kocáb said. "The Workers Party is a right-wing extremist party with a fascist and Nazi ideology. The proposal for the suspension of the Communist Party is meant to deal with its past, to separate it, and under another guise to continue as a normal political party."

The connection between the two cases is closer, said Albert, who views the attempt to ban the Workers Party, in particular the ill-fated attempt in March 2008, as a sort of trial run before taking on the more complex case of the Communists.

The NSS could make a ruling on the DS case as soon as Jan. 14, though an adjournment with a verdict at a later date is a more likely outcome.

Should the party be banned, it is likely the DS would reconstitute itself as another party with a different name.

"If our enemies believe the dissolution of DS would get rid of us, they are very wrong," Vandas said. "We will continue in politics, and we are already ready for all outcomes."

- Petr Cibulka Jr. contributed to this report.

Benjamin Cunningham can be reached at
bcunningham@praguepost.com