CZECH SOCIAL DEMOCRATS SEEK TO MAINTAIN MOMENTUM

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRAGUE 000134

SIPDIS

STATE FOR T, EUR/FO, EUR/CE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/22/2019
TAGS: PREL PGOV EZ
SUBJECT: CZECH SOCIAL DEMOCRATS SEEK TO MAINTAIN MOMENTUM

REF: A. 08 PRAGUE 666

B. 08 PRAGUE 681

Classified By: POLEC COUNSELOR CHARLES O. BLAHA FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND
(D).


1. (C) SUMMARY: In less than two weeks, the Czech Social
Democrats (CSSD) will hold their national party congress,
which comes at a time when the party has much to celebrate,
but also faces several challenges. Following their sweeping
victories in the October 2008 regional and senate elections,
the party is looking to the June 5-6 European Parliament (EP)
elections for another strong showing in order to solidify its
position as the party to beat in advance of the 2010
parliamentary elections. CSSD chairman Jiri Paroubek has
strengthened his hold over the party and has instituted a
number of changes to modernize the party's political
campaigns. At the same time, Paroubek is keeping the
Topolanek coalition government under pressure, though he has
moderated his attacks since the start of the Czech EU
Presidency. The coalition government's ongoing internal
problems and the economic crisis will likely play in CSSD's
favor, but other factors, including CSSD's cooperation with
the Communists in regional governments, will make the party
vulnerable. CSSD is currently slipping in the polls, while
PM Topolanek's numbers have risen. CSSD may therefore find
it difficult to repeat its October triumph in the June EP
elections. However, even a moderate success in the EP
elections will give CSSD a boost, as it prepares to compete
for the real prize in the next parliamentary elections. END
SUMMARY.

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THE REBIRTH OF A CHAIRMAN
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2. (C) The upcoming CSSD national congress, which will be
held in Prague on March 20-22, is styled as an extravagant
celebration of the party's recent successes and an
opportunity to energize the troops before the June 5-6
elections to the European Parliament. This will also be a
moment of personal celebration for Jiri Paroubek, who is
running unopposed for reelection as CSSD's chairman and who
only a year ago was watching his political career spiraling
downward.


3. (C) Paroubek and his take-no-prisoners operating style
have been widely blamed for the four CSSD MP renegades, who
in the past two years left the party and threw their support
behind the Topolanek coalition. CSSD's defeat in the
February 2008 presidential elections further undermined
Paroubek's hold over his party. Then, in summer 2008, the
group "Friends of Zeman" (former Prime Minister and CSSD
chairman Milos Zeman) emerged as an anti-Paroubek power
center within CSSD. Paroubek also continued to be plagued by
various scandals, which took a toll on his position within
CSSD. The most egregious scandal occurred immediately before
the October 2008 regional and senate elections, when one
shady businessman killed another at a Paroubek book signing.
Both the killer and the victim had ties not just to Paroubek,
but also to the criminal underworld. For a few days after
the killing, it appeared as if Paroubek would have to cut his
political career short and resign.


4. (C) However, the October 2008 regional and senate
elections (ref A and B) not only dealt significant blows to
the Topolanek government and the PM himself, but they also
gave CSSD chairman Jiri Paroubek a new lease on his political
life. Paroubek quickly claimed the sweeping victories as a
validation of his leadership. The victories indeed swept
aside any doubts CSSD's membership may have had regarding
their chairman. The embryonic "Friends of Zeman," which
seemed to be readying itself to unseat Paroubek in case of an
electoral defeat in October, quietly melted away. Similarly,
potential Paroubek challengers in the CSSD chairman contest,
including deputy chairmen Zdenek Skromach and Bohuslav
Sobotka, fell back in line. As a result, Paroubek will be
easily reelected at the upcoming CSSD congress, which will
probably also put in place a CSSD leadership team of
Paroubek's liking.

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PAROUBEK'S POLLING AND HIS PERMANENT CAMPAIGN
--------------


5. (C) Paroubek also took the October elections as a
validation of his campaign strategy and tactics. He told us
in December 2008 that he completely revamped CSSD's approach
to last fall's regional and senate campaigns. He relied
heavily on advice of the American consulting firm Penn,
Shoen, and Berland Associates (PSB),the company which CSSD

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engaged already during the 2006 parliamentary election
campaign. With PSB's help, CSSD's leaders narrowed down
their party's policy platform to a handful of key issues,
relying on frequent and extensive voter polling to guide
their decisions. Indeed, CSSD and especially Paroubek have
been mocked by Czech media and political commentators for
being guided solely by public opinion, without exhibiting any
leadership on important and tough issues like missile defense
or foreign deployments. For Paroubek, however, the October
election results represented a clear validation of his
"people-meter" approach.


6. (C) Following the 2006 parliamentary elections, Paroubek
also adopted a political approach vis-a-vis the Topolanek
government that can only be described as one of zero
tolerance and zero cooperation. Paroubek has called this
approach a "permanent campaign." He has generally refused to
support the government on all major issues. This approach
has become especially pronounced and problematic with regard
to foreign and security policy, the two areas where past
governments and oppositions had worked well together.
Decisions on everything from foreign deployments to missile
defense (MD) have been poisoned by the country's domestic
politics, at times to the detriment of the Czech Republic's
international standing and national interest.


7. (C) While the "permanent campaign" has kept the Topolanek
government under pressure, it has not necessarily earned CSSD
any points with the public. A recent poll commissioned by
CSSD found that a majority of voters wished that the
opposition would cooperate more with the government,
especially during the Czech EU Presidency. A well-placed
CSSD parliamentarian from Prague recently told us that CSSD
members have been voicing similar sentiments to their
chairman and they have been counseling him against further
frontal assaults on Topolanek. CSSD leaders do not wish to
appear as saboteurs of the EU Presidency. In recent weeks,
Paroubek seems to have toned down his attacks. He and other
CSSD leaders have even acknowledged publicly that some of
their hard-line steps in recent past were a mistake. For
example, during a crucial February vote on health care
payments, CSSD refused to pair out a coalition MP who has
been lying in a hospital in a coma for several weeks. When
the Communists (KSCM) agreed to help the coalition by pairing
out the said MP, CSSD harshly criticized them. In
retrospect, however, CSSD acknowledged that this was a
mistake which respondents to a recent poll condemned as
inhumane.

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EP ELECTIONS AND CHALLENGES AHEAD
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8. (C) As Paroubek prepares his party for the EP elections,
he will therefore have to strike a careful balance. He will
have to keep sufficient pressure on the Topolanek government,
while at the same time appearing more constructive and
supportive of the overall EU Presidency goals. For a man of
Paroubek's "bulldozer" qualities, that will be a hard task.
Already, Paroubek has watched some of his party's lead in the
polls shrink from 15 to 10 percent, as PM Topolanek has
gained in popularity thanks to his current high profile EU
presidency role. Topolanek's participation in the April G-20
and NATO summits, as well as welcoming President Obama and
presiding over the U.S.-EU summit in Prague, will likely
boost his standing even further. The extravagant March 20-22
CSSD congress, which includes a gala evening and a musical
and which was also contemplating the participation of former
President Bill Clinton, is in part Paroubek's effort to steal
the limelight from Topolanek for at least few days.


9. (C) While trying to remain visible, Paroubek will
simultaneously have to lower the party's profile when it
comes to the various scandals that continue to dog CSSD.
Just in the last month, media have reported that past CSSD
ministers funneled millions of Czech crowns in state
subsidies into a hotel that doubled as a brothel. A number
of high profile CSSD officials had visited the "hotel." More
recently, the editor in chief of the left-of-center daily
"Pravo" accused Paroubek and his political fixer Jaroslav
Tvrdik (former Minister of Defense) of attempting to pressure
the newspaper into writing more positively about CSSD and its
chairman. With these stories making the headlines, deputy
CSSD chairman Zdenek Skromach very aptly summed up today's
CSSD: "Our enemies will never destroy us; we are capable of
doing it ourselves."


10. (C) Paroubek's task ahead of the EP elections will also
be complicated by the relatively weak slate of candidates his
party is putting forward. According to Jan Hamacek, Chairman
of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Lower Chamber, no one

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in CSSD is happy with the candidate slate, but it was the
result of a compromise between the party's central
organization and the regions ahead of the CSSD congress.
With a lackluster list of EP candidates, CSSD has little
choice but to resort to the strategy from last fall: make
the EP election into a referendum on the Topolanek government
and focus on one or two key issues of particular concern to
the voters. Undoubtedly, the worsening economic situation in
the Czech Republic and the rest of the world will be one of
those focus issues. Health care co-payments, the cause
celebre of the October 2008 regional and senate elections,
have lost some of their appeal, but CSSD will probably not
drop the issue completely.


11. (C) Further complicating CSSD's EP campaign will be a
more active -- and more negative -- campaign by PM
Topolanek's Civic Democrats (ODS). Before the October 2008
elections, ODS relied on the regions and the candidates to
develop and run their individual campaigns. These disjointed
efforts were woefully inadequate in the face of the highly
organized and centralized CSSD electoral machine. ODS has
learned from this mistake and has, for example, already
launched a web site focused on CSSD's various scandals and
controversial missteps, such as that of David Rath, the
governor of Central Bohemia, who recently praised Adolf
Hitler's economic crisis response. ODS will also seek to
condemn CSSD's unprecedented collaboration with the
Communists in regional governments. With regard to the
Communists, Paroubek is already counteracting ODS attacks.
In February, Paroubek sharpened his rhetoric vis-a-vis the
KSCM, stating that any ideological rapprochement between CSSD
and KSCM would be a "political suicide." For some Czechs,
however, words will not be enough to put sufficient distance
between the two parties.

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COMMENT
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12. (C) With a 10-percent lead in the polls, CSSD is
undoubtedly an early favorite to win the next parliamentary
elections, which should be held no later than June 2010.
Persistent tensions within the governing coalition and
internal problems in each of the three coalition parties
continue to weigh on the Topolanek government and thus play
into CSSD's hands. Similarly, the Czech Republic's worsening
economic outlook has provided CSSD with a useful political
hammer with which the party can score points against the
government. While Paroubek certainly has his sights set on
the next parliamentary elections, he must first demonstrate
that the October 2008 electoral victories were not just a
fluke. His first opportunity to do so will be in the June EP
elections. If CSSD manages to repeat its October victory, it
will solidify its lead over ODS and put further pressure on
Topolanek and his government. Given the challenges above,
however, the EP election results will probably be less
sweeping. Nevertheless, even with more moderate results,
Paroubek will remain the man to beat in the next
parliamentary elections.
Thompson-Jones