Czech Social Democratic Party at crossroads
Political analyst Jiří Pehe says 2024 is the year when the traditional Czech Social Democratic Party came to an end.
The recently-elected leader of the Social Democratic Party Jana Maláčová said that her primary goal in the coming months would be to build a broad left-wing coalition ahead of the general elections in October of next year. The new party chair will face the uphill task of putting the Social Democrats back on the political map. In opinion surveys the party has consistently appeared below the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats in the lower house. Could this mean the end of the traditional social-democracy in Czechia? Vít Pohanka asked Jiří Pehe, political scientist at the New York University in Prague.
Yes, I think that means the end of Czech social democracy exactly as we knew it. Of course, there may be some new form of a social democracy or party that calls itself a social democracy, but certainly it will have little to do with any aspirations to be a modern European democratic left party. It will simply be part of a camp of so-called patriotic and a national populist party led by the post-communist movement under the name “Enough”.
So, do you think this could lead to the Czech social democracy, or SOCDEM, as they call themselves, kind of dissolving in this new left-wing coalition led by the communists?
Well, I think that Maláčová has little chance to make social democracy the leading force in this coalition that she wants to join. Quite clearly, the upper hand there has the communists led by Kateřina Konečná, who, by the way, is also a more talented politician than Maláčová. So, I think that for Maláčová to play any role, or the party that she leads now to play any role in this coalition, will be very, very difficult. And I think that the agenda will be set by Konečná and people around her.
As you indicated, Kateřina Konečná, the leader of the Communist Party and member of the European Parliament, is a very dynamic politician. Do you think she will be able to bring the communists back to the Czech Parliament?
Yes, I think that Konečná has a chance to bring the communists back to the lower house of the Czech Parliament, but of course the question is whether it will be the Communist Party or whether it will be some new brand such as this coalition called Enough in Czech “Stačilo”, because she obviously doesn't want to go into the elections as the leader of the Communist Party per se, but as the leader of this coalition, which consists of post-communist parties, the Social Democratic Party, and then also a number of so-called patriotic or national populist parties.
So yes, she has a chance to get into the lower house with this coalition, but I don't think it will be the same kind of political force that we knew in the form of the Communist Party.
The general understanding is that the typical Social Democratic Party voters were lured away largely by Andrej Babiš's ANO party and by right-wing SPD. Is this still a valid explanation why the once kind of mighty social democracy is now struggling to be relevant, or is there perhaps another deeper cause of its failure to attract especially young voters?
Well, I think the main cause is that in general, the Social Democratic Party has never managed to transform itself into a modern Social Democratic Party that we know from Western Europe. She therefore didn't really have any young voters, or very few, or was not able to attract young voters. And so the party met the same fate that we saw in the case of some other parties with a very old electorate and membership.
And the other reason was that the party for some time pursued what we could describe as sort of a national socialist policy—meant in the Czech way and not the German way—and that was something that combined nationalism and a sort of leftist social agenda. This was also very unattractive for young people. So when Andrej Babiš came and offered strong leadership and basically a social program, a leftist social program, a lot of voters of the Social Democratic Party decided to follow him because after the years of Miloš Zeman, who was also a strong leader, they were looking for someone who would offer the same qualities, and that certainly was Mr. Babiš for them.
I think you indicated that, but let me just make it clear to our foreign listeners. The traditional social democratic voters are providing the bulk of the support for the opposition ANO party founded by the billionaire and businessman Andrej Babiš, right?
Absolutely. If you look at the results of the elections in 2017, the Social Democratic Party lost about 13 percent of its electorate, and most of those voters ended up in Babiš's camp.
The same was, by the way, true about the communists, who also lost about seven or eight percent of their electorate. And so those voters are now basically supporters of Babiš, and I don't think that there is anything that could bring them back to the Social Democratic Party as long as Babiš runs his political project.
