Government survives the vote of no-confidence due to Communists' abstention

The Czech Prime Minister, Stanislav Gross, survived a no-confidence vote on Friday thanks to the tacit support of Communist deputies, who abstained from voting. The Social Democrats will now lead a minority government, as the Christian Democrats, a junior party in the governing coalition, left the government in protest earlier this week.

Prime Minister Stanislav Gross, photo: CTK

Even though there were only 78 MP's out of 200 voting for the no-confidence, the government survived only due to the Communist deputies who abstained from the vote. Although the Communists had seemed likely to abstain already on Thursday, it was not clear until the very end, whether they all would vote the same way.

The Communist MEP Miloslav Randsdorf:

"I have to say that it is not support for the prime minister, not support for the Social Democracy, not support for the government. This is only a question of winning time - winning time for reshaping the left, reshaping the political scene in the Czech Republic to prevent the dominance of the new coalition of centrist and right wing forces. So it is the choice of the lesser evil."

Some of the Communist deputies said that it would depend on the prime minister's speech whether they would abstain or vote against the government. But Prime Minister Stanislav Gross didn't say anything particularly friendly in reference to the Communist party. His speech was rather a summary of the government's successes - he praised namely the high growth of GDP and the amount of foreign investments in the Czech Republic. He generally refused the economic criticism of the Civic Democrats and said that the current conflict is rather a reflection of two policy concepts - one based on solidarity and the other one promoting the rights of elites. Especially by stressing the solidarity element it seemed he tried at least to avoid offending the Communists.

Even though it might seem the government has a free way to continue in its program, it is necessary to bear in mind that it is a minority government and as such, it will be much harder for it to push through any decisions. The Social Democrats' Parliament Chairman Lubomir Zaoralek is also aware of this fact.

"We have to create new methods to move in the chamber of deputies; it is a new situation for us. But I am convinced that our program remains stable. We have to keep our priorities and I am convinced that we will find a way to communicate in parliament with all other parliamentary parties and we will keep our coalition program."

Lubomir Zaoralek seems to be quite optimistic, but there are a number of ministers and government deputies who are not quite happy with the tacit support of the Communists, and they say they will see in the future whether they will stay in the government at all. So we might still see a lot of turmoil in Czech politics in the coming months.