Election 2010: Voters punish big parties in landmark election

Coalition negotiations are under way, and the casualties within hours of polls closing May 29 included four party leaders in what is being called a sea change for Czech politics.  

The favored Social Democrats (ČSSD) did garner the most votes, but their 22.1 percent proved a sufficient disappointment to prompt the immediate resignation of party leader Jiří Paroubek. The Civic Democrats second-place finish will likely deliver the post of prime minister to their election leader, Petr Nečas - as part of a center-right coalition - but their 20.2 percent is more than 15 percent fewer votes than they received in the 2006 elections.

The larger story that emerged as voters cast their ballots was an outright rejection of the country's two largest parties who formed every government since the early 1990s.    

"The narrative is one word: mutiny," said Jiří Pehe, director of New York University in Prague and a former aide to President Václav Havel.

"Voters sent a message to the big parties," said Vladimíra Dvořáková, director of the political science department at the University of Economics in Prague.

What is slated to follow is a three-way coalition between the ODS and two new and still relatively opaque quantities, TOP 09 and VV (Public Affairs).

"VV, especially, is unknown," Pehe said. "We know almost nothing about what they stand for."

TOP 09, led by Karel Schwarzenberg and Miroslav Kalousek, took 16.7 percent of the vote and shocked the ODS by defeating it outright in its former stronghold of Prague. They also managed to win other urban districts in Bohemia like Liberec and Hradec Králové. Whether that is a permanent shift remains to be seen.

"Prague is a hotbed of various intellectual revolts, which often make a big noise in politics, but then quite quickly vanish," said Bohumil Doležal, a political analyst and former aide to President Václav Klaus, when Klaus was prime minister.

TOP 09 takes a strong position on cutting budget deficits, and its leader, Schwarzenberg, while popular, admits he lacks a strong ideology on much else.

VV is led by former TV Nova reporter Radek John, and the party has been termed populist by more than one observer. The party rode a wave of discontent with the status quo to 10.9 percent of the vote while revealing very little about what it stands for, other than that it is against corruption.

"It's an anti-establishment party that is becoming part of the establishment," Dvořáková said of the prospect that VV would prove a stable coalition partner. "We don't know what their behavior will be like."

Early signs were not good as party leaders met with Klaus at Prague Castle May 31. VV appears to be demanding control of the Interior and Defense ministries as part of any coalition deal.

"I would consider it very dangerous if they got those," Doležal said.

Another of VV's top brass and their chief financier, Vít Bárta, owner of the security firm ABL, was quoted in several press reports June 1 as threatening to back out of the coalition.

"VV is constructed like a private firm owned by Bárta," Pehe said. "John is not the one who makes the decisions."

The prospect of drawn-out coalition negotiations appears to have been avoided, but whether an ODS/TOP 09/VV coalition can produce long-term stability and how horse-trading will play out remains to be seen.

"They will have enough votes to push legislation through," Dvořaková said of the 118 out of 200 seats in the Chamber of Deputies that the coalition would potentially control.

Pehe said he doesn't see it as a stable arrangement. "It may be initially, but, in the long run, too much is unknown," he said.

If TOP 09 and VV were the big winners, the biggest losers were the Social Democrats. Despite actually winning the most seats, 56, without any coalition prospects the party has been vanquished once again to opposition. The former leader, Paroubek, will now have to content himself with being a deputy from Ústí nad Labem.

"A great danger was removed," Doležal said of the prospect of a ČSSD-led government. "Paroubek wasn't a danger because he was a Social Democrat, but because he was not a democrat at all."

In the end, the defeat may prove a chance for the party to reform.

"This is a big chance for the party. They can try to get the support of young people who didn't support Paroubek," Dvořáková said. "They don't have to be a part of unpopular things the government will have to do."

For now, Bohuslav Sobotka leads the ČSSD, but simmering questions about how he financed the purchase of an apartment could break into full boil as party members maneuver for new posts.  

Pehe said the party has the chance to bring itself "closer to West European standards." "An extension of party membership would help, because there are currently still many former communists," Doležal said.

The ČSSD was not alone in defeat as the Christian Democrats and Greens failed to make it back into Parliament, prompting the resignation of their party leaders.

"That is the price the Greens pay for being in the last Cabinet," Dvořáková said, pointing out that many anti-establishment voters likely fled the party for VV.  

Former Prime Minister Miloš Zeman's return to politics proved disastrous, with his party winning only 4.3 percent of the vote. The Communist Party dropped out of the top three for the first time since 1989, winning 11.3 percent to finish fourth.

With two new parties likely in government, and the power of the ODS and the ČSSD in decline, its now again up to politicians to make things work.

"It is not enough to destroy; there is also a need to create something positive," Doležal said. "I cannot get rid off the impression that, since its founding, the Czech Republic lurches from less bad to more bad. Now, there is a kind of chance. I'm very curious to see if we throw it away again."

- Filip Šenk contributed to this report.

Benjamin Cunningham can be reached at
bcunningham@praguepost.com