Topolanek's Topple?

Posted: 16 June 2008

by Jiří Pehe

The future of the Czech government, led by Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek’s conservative Civic Democratic Party (ODS), is highly uncertain. If the government does manage to survive until the scheduled 2010 elections, it will be weak and inefficient.

There are several reasons for the downturn in the ruling coalition’s fortunes. Following the electoral deadlock in 2006, the government was only able to form with the help of two defectors from its principal rival, the center-left Social Democratic Party (CSSD). The resulting coalition was a rather incoherent formation, consisting of Topolanek’s conservatives, centrist Christian Democrats, and the Green Party. The last party is particularly unstable. While its leadership leans to the right, its members are generally leftist.

Despite its very shaky majority, the government decided to pursue unpopular reforms, such as cutting state deficits and introducing symbolic payments for medical care. The coalition parties remained united after the first batch of reforms were pushed through the Parliament, but the coalition’s unity began to crumble when opinion polls started to show sharp drops in the coalition parties’ popularity.

Under pressure, the individual coalition parties began to display signs of internal disunity. The most serious blow to the stability of the government came at the beginning of June, when an OSD deputy, Vlastimil Tlusty, and several of his allies announced that they would no longer support the government, claiming that Topolanek had betrayed the party’s conservative principles. Tlusty is also strongly opposed to a bill on the restitution of Church property, which the coalition is trying to push through the Parliament.

Under this bill, the state would pay churches more then 80 billion Czech crowns (about $5 billion) over a period of sixty years as compensation for the confiscation of church assets that occurred under the communist regime. With interest, the total amount would come to around 300 billion crowns ($20 billion). Tlusty opposes the measure on the grounds that it is not permissible to shift the responsibility for paying such huge amounts onto the shoulders of future taxpayers. He also argues that it is not clear how the government will come up with the necessary funds.

Tlusty’s opposition to the church bill could just be a pretext. He is known to be one of the closest allies of President Vaclav Klaus, ODS’ founder and honorary chairman, who is not particularly fond of Topolanek. Tlusty’s moves are therefore interpreted by some analysts as an attempt by the President to remove the Prime Minister.

But the government would still be in trouble even without Tlusty’s revolt. It seems that the coalition could split later this year over the issue of the American anti-missile radar. Topolanek has forcefully campaigned for placing the radar on Czech territory, despite lacking public support for the move. The Greens, who have been loyal coalition partners so far, are internally divided over the radar. At least three of their members now say they will not support the agreement with Washington. Since the leftist opposition, with its 98 seats in the 200-member parliament, is united against the radar, it is highly unlikely that the government will have enough votes to approve the agreement with the United States.

The rejection of the radar treaty would be a major embarrassment, not only for the government, but also for the Czech Republic internationally. It is almost certain the coalition would not survive such a political fiasco. Even if it managed to do so, further instability is likely to come after the fall Senate and regional parliamentary elections. ODS has so far dominated in both (it currently has a majority in the Senate and controls 13 out of the 14 regions into which the Czech Republic is administratively divided), but public opinion surveys suggest that it and the other coalition parties could suffer a major defeat in the fall. Small wonder the CSSD is now calling for early elections in 2009, right after the Czech Republic has completed its presidency of the European Union.

Jiří Pehe, once Chief Political Advisor to former Czech President Václav Havel, is a political analyst and Director of New York University in Prague.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Center for European Policy Analysis.