2009 a bad year for main Czech party

by Jaroslav Hofer

Just one year ago, everything seemed to be coming up roses for the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and its leader, Mirek Topolanek.

He was the center of European attention with the Czech Republic beginning a six-month term as the European Union (EU) president. He was seen on TV with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin solving the Russian-Ukrainian gas disputes and lecturing U.S. president Barack Obama.

But the high hopes were not fulfilled and the popularity did not last and, four months later, Topolanek's coalition government was toppled by opposition parties, the first Czech prime minister to suffer such a defeat.

His non-partisan successor, leading an interim cabinet, Jan Fischer, is modest and business-like and he has become one of the most popular Czech politicians of past two decades.

Another severe shock for Topolanek and his center-right party came in September, when Obama called Prague to announce Washington had decided not to build an anti-missile radar station in the Czech Republic.

The decision embarrassed the ODS, which had spent many months trying to persuade the public and opposition parties that the radar station together with missile interceptors in Poland was vital to the nation's security.

Russia had sharply criticized the missile shield, saying it was a threat to its national security. Two thirds of Czech citizens and the biggest opposition party, the Social Democratic Party (CSSD) also opposed it.

To the ODS, the U.S. scrapping of the plan added insult to injury. The senators perceived the Americans as putting Russian interests ahead of theirs and they took that as an extra loss of face.

An even worse repudiation came from Czech president Vaclav Klaus, who initially refused to sign the EU's reform plan, the Lisbon Treaty, saying the Topolanek government had been negligent in the negotiations.

Klaus demanded a permanent opt-out from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, incorporated in the Lisbon Treaty, for fear it would undermine the Benes decrees, laws enacted by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile during World War II and invoked after Germany's defeat to confiscate properties owned by Sudeten Germans and Hungarians evicted from Czechoslovakia.

Topolanek failed to persuade Klaus to sign the Lisbon Treaty and Klaus went on to secure the opt-out provision with the EU late in 2009, when the Czech Republic was the last country to give the green light to the treaty.

Topolanek's fall from grace has continued. In summer, newspapers published pictures of him standing naked among unknown naked young women in an Italian villa.

Although the pictures failed to stir Czech public opinion, it added fuel to the fire raging inside his own party. A group of party members led by Prague's mayor Pavel Bem openly challenged him in November.

The ongoing internal party quarrels have flowed through to voter dissatisfaction in opinion polls.

Moreover, a new center-right political party, TOP 09, was founded by Topolanek's former finance minister, Miroslav Kalousek, who has presented himself as more serious and pragmatic than Topolanek.

Kalousek also enlisted Karel Schwarzenberg, an extremely rich former aristocrat with strong links to Austria and Germany, in his new party. Kalousek's party is said to be stealing ODS votes.

According to a STEM agency survey in December, the ODS had 22.5 percent support among voters, with the CSSD on 28.7 percent. Based on these figures, the CSSD and the Communist Party could easily dominate a new Parliament after elections next May.

Source: Xinhua