Civic Democrats get a makeover

The weekend conference of the Czech Republic’s largest centre-right party, the Civic Democrats, brought plenty of new faces to the forefront. Many in the press and the party itself refer to the changes as a revolution, but will it help them regain their lost ground? What can we expect from the “new” Civic Democratic Party? Radio Prague asked political analyst Jiří Pehe.

Jiří Pospíšil, Pavel Drobil, Pavel Blažek, Petr Nečas, Miroslava Němcová, Alexandr Vondra (left to right), photo: CTK

“I think that the Civic Democratic Party has made an important step towards improving its image and perhaps repairing the damage that had been done before the congress by various groups that were accused of corrupt practices and so on. I think the fact that the Civic Democratic Party managed to elect leaders who really were not nominated by the various brotherhoods and mafias that existed in the party is encouraging.”

Do you think it can really be called a renaissance as some of the members of the party have been calling it?

“I think it’s too early to call the election of the new leadership a renaissance; I think they have hard work ahead of themselves, simply because what they changed was the facade, not the bowels, of the party. They still have to do this, and I think it will be very difficult, because there are really various interests – business interests, economic interests – deeply entrenched within the party, and I am sure that those people will not give up easily.”

Václav Klaus|Photo: Radio Prague International

President Klaus seems very happy with the developments in the party that he himself founded; do you think there could be any kind of reconciliation ahead between Mr Klaus and the Civic Democratic Party?

“Well, the Civic Democratic Party now has at least two people in its leadership who are very close to Mr Klaus, that is, Petr Nečas himself and Miroslava Němcová; both of them are close associates of the president. So perhaps Klaus may consider better, closer relations with the party that he founded. But on the other hand, this party will have to make compromises in the new government coalition, it will most likely be in a coalition with two parties that are quite strongly pro-European, and it will have to make concessions that the president – a known Euro-sceptic – will not like. So we’ll see if this doesn’t sour relations between the President and the Civic Democratic Party again.”

Lastly, do you think the changes made at the conference at the weekend have any chance of bringing voters back to the Civic Democratic Party from TOP 09 and the Public Affairs party?

“Well, I think that the Civic Democrats really have to think hard about how they want to profile themselves in terms of their programme. I think that the Civic Democrats can get their voters back, and actually become a dominant political force on the right side of the political spectrum again if they manage to transform themselves into a “Volkspartei” of sorts, that is, a broadly based people’s party that doesn’t have to necessarily be Christian Democratic, but speaks to more people than the traditional Civic Democratic voters.”