CZECH ELECTIONS: DECISIVE VICTORY UNLIKELY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRAGUE 000574

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SUBJECT: CZECH ELECTIONS: DECISIVE VICTORY UNLIKELY

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B. PRAGUE 427

C. PRAGUE 482

D. PRAGUE 516

E. PRAGUE 535

F. PRAGUE 549

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1. (SBU) SUMMARY. There are a number of trends, and
idiosyncrasies in the Czech political system that will
influence the June 2-3 general election, and politics for the
foreseeable future. These include: (1) the semi-outlaw status
of the Communist Party, which holds more than 20% of the
seats in Parliament; (2) the long-term demographic trends
that make the traditional kingmaker, the Christian Democrats,
increasingly less relevant; (3) the rootless, fragile
existence of small liberal parties; (4) the
under-representation of women in politics, which is one sign
of a broader public disgust with politics; and (5) the
electoral rules used in the Czech proportional representation
system. The result has been political parties that are not
strongly connected to voters, we well as a series of weak and
unstable governments. The elections next month are unlikely
to break this trend. END SUMMARY


2. (U) COMMUNISTS. The Communist Party of Bohemia and
Moravia (KSCM) is the only party from the days of
totalitarian rule in Central Europe to have retained the word
"communist" in its name. Antipathy towards the Communists
since 1989 has meant that mainstream parties would not
cooperate with them at the national level. But this political
isolation -- which many Czech reformers thought would
accelerate the Communists' demise -- has coincided with
growing support for the party among voters. In the 1996
elections KSCM received 22 seats (in the 200-seat lower
chamber),24 in the early elections in 1998, and 41 in the
2002 vote.


3. (SBU) One consequence has been that mainstream parties had
reduced maneuvering room to form a government: in the
current parliament, a majority government of 101 seats had to
be formed from the 159 non-communist seats, meaning 64% of
the non-communist seats were required. This has contributed
to the instability of recent coalitions, two of which
collapsed since the 2002 elections. Prime Minister Paroubek
sees a solution in eventually bringing a reformed Communist
Party into the political mainstream (with Paroubek's
political calculation likely being that a reformed Communist
Party would in the end differ little from his CSSD, allowing
the Social Democrats to eliminate KSCM as a rival). But for
the coming electoral term, the KSCM remains unreformed and
therefore will not be a formal coalition partner for any
party, including CSSD. While this will once again mean
reduced maneuvering space to form a majority coalition,
Paroubek has altered the playing field by putting on the
table the option of a minority CSSD government with KSCM
support -- a step that he believes would support his goal of
reforming the KSCM and eventually bringing them into the
mainstream.


4. (U) CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS. One of the small parties that has
played the role of kingmaker through most of the
post-communist era is the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL). But
this party is increasingly out of step in this overwhelmingly
secular nation. The Czechs, unlike their neighbors in Poland,
have the lowest rate of church attendance in the EU; they
have the highest rate of divorce and the lowest rate of
childbirth in the EU. The Social Democrats recently passed,
with the help of the Communists, a law permitting the
registration of same-sex partnerships (subsequently vetoed by
the President). The Christian Democrats, on the other hand,
want more state aid for churches, closer ties with the
Vatican, a ban on same-sex partnerships, and numerous other
measures that have very little popular support. In the last
two elections, the party received just under 10%. But in
recent pre-election polls, the Christian Democrats are
drawing between 4 and 8%. The decreasing support for this
traditional kingmaker means that the major parties will be
less able to rely on their seats when putting together
majority governments.


5. (U) LIBERALS. The inability of Czech liberals to organize
themselves into a sustainable political organization is
another factor that makes it difficult to form lasting,
predictable, reliable coalitions. The current liberal party
in parliament with 10 seats, the Freedom Union (US-DEU),is
the third member of the current coalition. It barely
registers in pre-election polls, and no one expects the party
will survive this election. Its demise is largely of its own
making. Early this year, when it was clear that the party
would not get the 5% needed for entry into parliament, or
even the 3% needed for post-election reimbursement, party
leaders held a meeting to decide what to do. Some among the

PRAGUE 00000574 002.2 OF 002


party said it didn't make sense to waste money on a hopeless
election and urged the party to "sit this one out," thereby
saving funds for the local and Senate elections in the fall.
However, party chair and current Justice Minister Pavel Nemec
and others decided to give the election a try, but on a
completely different tack. The "New Freedom Union" was
launched, and now the coalition member solicits support from
protesters, anarchists, graffiti artists, consumers of
marijuana, and those who just "want to live a little or
completely differently."

6. (U) Two emerging extraparliamentary parties, the Greens
(SZ) and the Independents/European Democrats (SNK/ED),have
constituencies similar to the voter base of the original
Freedom Union, namely well educated, young, urban liberals.
Freedom Union's demise will make it easier for these two
parties to cross the 5% threshold for entry to parliament,
though it's too early to say for certain whether those
parties will split the vote, or the Greens will capture all
the attention, as recent polls have indicated. The Greens are
polling between 4 and 10%. The European Democrats received
more than 250,000 votes in the June 2004 elections for the
European parliament, an election Freedom Union did not enter.
A similar turnout for SNK/ED would put them over 5%. But,
particularly in light of the inability of any liberal party
to survive since 1989, the real question is whether either of
these new parties, largely untested at the national level,
will prove to be reliable coalition partners.

7. (U) WOMEN IN POLITICS AND OTHER POPULAR DISAFFECTION.
Although the Czech Republic is very progressive on many
issues, women are still dramatically under-represented at the
highest levels of government. Two explanations are offered.
The first is that men don't want women in positions of power.
The second is that Czech politics is a dirty, crooked
business and that emancipated women, with a wide range of
choices, would rather do other things. In the current
government, the Prime Minister and the five Deputy Prime
Ministers are all men. Only two of the seventeen cabinet
members are women (Education Minister Petra Buzkova and
Informatics Minister Dana Berova). Buzkova is leaving
politics this summer, though she might run later for the
Senate. Berova,s ministry will probably be eliminated. Each
of the 14 regional governors is a man. The major cities all
have men as mayors. The result, or perhaps the underlying
cause, is that politics is perceived as horse-trading
conducted by men in smoky back rooms, and not something
determined by the publicly-made electoral choices of the
public, half of which is female. This is one element of
larger popular dissatisfaction with politics, particularly at
the national level, which is fed as well by repeated
corruption scandals.

8. (U) ELECTORAL RULES. Another element creating a distance
between voters and their elected officials is the
technicalities of the Czech electoral system. Voters receive
party lists in the mail days before the election. They take
the lists to the voting booth, place the list of their chosen
party into an envelope, and drop the envelope in the ballot
box. Lists for all other parties are dropped in an adjacent
trash bin. The voters choose a party, not a candidate. The
electoral lists are drawn up by local party officials. There
is no primary system in which voters can have a say in
determining their candidate. Moreover, the president is
elected by the members of Parliament, not directly. Senators
are the only national officials directly elected.

9. (SBU) COMMENT. None of the factors outline above are new
(with the exception of PM Paroubek's new stance towards the
KSCM). We see no signs that the upcoming elections will
produce results that will give the Czech Republic a
government that is either stronger than recent governments
have been, or one that is better able to connect with its
citizens. Rather, as will be discussed further in septel, we
expect a close election that will be followed by many weeks
of closed-door negotiations between party leaders and the
President, the immediate result of which will probably be
only greater popular disgust with the political process.
DODMAN