LEADERSHIP OF CZECH CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT PARTY

UNCLAS PRAGUE 001056

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/NCE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL EZ
SUBJECT: LEADERSHIP OF CZECH CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT PARTY
(KDU-CSL) RESIGNS


1. SUMMARY (SBU) Just days after the fiercely anti-Communist
Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) joined a surprising coalition
with the Social Democrats (CSSD) that would have relied on
the tacit support of the Communist Party (KSCM),the party
chair Miroslav Kalousek, and three of the party's five Deputy
Chairs, including Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda, have
resigned amid widespread opposition to the hastily arranged
partnership among the party's rank and file. It is still
unclear who will lead the party in the future and whether the
party's policies will change as a result. For now, the
high-level purge has had a cautionary effect on the other
major parties and handed the initiative back to Prime
Minister designate Mirek Topolanek of the Civic Democrats.
The resignations by the Christian Democrats will probably
have less effect on U.S.-Czech relations than the lessons and
opportunities other parties draw from the incident. END
SUMMARY


2. (SBU) Outgoing Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek (CSSD) stunned
the nation last week when he announced that he was ending
talks with the Civic Democrats (ODS),who won the June 2-3
elections and were putting the finishing touches on a
minority government. Paroubek then made public that he was
cutting a deal with the right-of-center, religious and
anti-Communist Christian Democrats, on a minority government
that relied on the Communist Party for support. Some
analysts feel that Kalousek was forced into the deal by
dwindling support for his own party, by the prospect of four
years in the opposition, and by the looming threat of a
CSSD-ODS partnership that would have promoted a change to the
election law beneficial to large parties and harmful to small
ones, such as the Christian Democrats. Those inclined to
conspiracies, and there are many in the Czech Republic,
suspect that Paroubek, who never liked Kalousek, might have
used information on yet unconfirmed bribery and scandals
going back to Kalousek's days in the Ministry of Defense to
force him into an alliance that Kalousek's party would never
support. (One joke making the rounds in the Czech parliament
is that Kalousek made so much unlawful money off the Army's
purchase of the Swedish fighter jets, the Gripens, that he
can now afford to be the most honest man in government.)
Whether Kalousek was intentionally lured into a trap, or
simply had no other option, he did ask a handful of the
party's top leaders for their consent, and then grudgingly
agreed to the arrangement, in spite of his party's
anti-Communist stance.


3. (U) The reaction was swift and unmistakably clear.
Several of the party's bigger local chapters and several of
the party's 13 parliamentarians condemned the deal as a
betrayal of all the party stood for. On Friday, August 25,
within a day of agreeing to the arrangement, Kalousek
resigned. By Monday, August 28, three of the party's five
Deputy Chairs, including Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda, had
also resigned. Not long after he defeated FM Svoboda for the
party's chairmanship in the fall of 2003, Kalousek began
shifting the party, which had always been a flexible centrist
kingmaker, to the right. This culminated in March of 2005
when he pulled the party out of a coaltion with the Social
Democrats amid charges that CSSD Prime Minister Stanislav
Gross had used illicit funds to buy his personal residence.
In the campaign for this year's elections, the party ran as
an overt ally of the right-of-center Civic Democrats. It is
still unclear what the party's new leadership will look like,
who will lead the party in ongoing talks on forming the
government, what new priorities the party might have, or
where it will position itself on the political spectrum. The
party will be tested in the upcoming October 20-21 local and
Senate elections, and will hold a nationwide congress in
December, by which time it should be more clear whether the
effect of the leadership turnover will be long-lasting, or
whether the party might even come through the purge
strengthened. The party certainly needs new blood. The
average age of the party's members is 63, only slightly
better than the Communist Party. Furthermore, geographic
distribution of party supporters is such that it risks
becoming a regional party concentrated on Moravia, rather
than a national party.


4. COMMENT. (SBU) The purge at KDU-CSL will have few direct
consequences for bilateral ties. With the exception of its
occasional opposition to Turkish membership in the EU, the
Christian Democrats take few stands that challenge U.S.
policy. Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda has been a good friend
to the U.S. If he doesn't bounce back from his resignation
from his party seat, the U.S. will have lost a strong
supporter. Svoboda is expected to resign Friday, September
1, along with all the other members of Paroubek's cabinet, so
the immediate effect of his departure will be limited.

Whoever takes over the party reins, he or she is very
unlikely to take anything but a critical stance towards the
Communists. Although President Klaus has, since the
stalemated June elections, twice invited the Chairman of the
Communist Party to the Executive Office for talks, it seems
clear that cooperation with the Communists is still taboo
among KDU-CSL voters. The outcry and consequent resignations
could resonate across the political spectrum. CSSD will
probably be more discreet in its dealings with the Communists
in the coming days. Leaders at both ODS and CSSD might see a
danger in deals that sacrifice principles in order to retain
power, thus making it harder for them to conclude an
opposition agreement or grand coalition, which both parties
have promised not to do.


5. (SBU) It is too soon to say whether the leadership
turnover will help the party reverse the decline of the last
few years, or mark the beginning of the end. A weakened
KDU-CSL could have long-term implications for the left-right
balance of power. If early elections were to be held next
year, and the Christian Democrats, who took a disappointing
7.2% of the votes in the June election, were to fall below
the 5% threshold for entry into parliament, that would leave
the Civic Democrats alone on the right side of the political
spectrum. Neither the Social Democrats nor the Communists
will benefit from the purge of the Christian Democrat
leadership, but together, they have consistently beaten ODS.
Neither of the nation's two biggest parties have ever won
enough seats to form a majority government on their own. It
has always been the little parties that gave them their
majority. The fate of the shrinking, center-right Christian
Democrats will have an impact on the local and Senate
elections in October, and possibly on early elections next
year, if that is what the government of Mirek Topolanek
(ODS),which is expected to take over at the start of
September, leads the nation to. In the short run, the purges
will cause everyone to step back and calm down, giving
Topolanek more time and breathing room to put together a
successful minority ODS government. In the long run, a
weakened, possibly extraparliamentary KDU-CSL could benefit
Paroubek.


CABANISS