Lower house sets date for next speaker vote

The lower house of parliament has set a new date for its next attempt to try and elect a new speaker: August 14th, in other words, in ten days. All candidates for the post will be nominated by August 11th. So far, the lower chamber has made five attempts to elect a chairman since a new parliament was elected, but without success. Following two months of deadlock, Civic Democrat chairman Mirek Topolanek launched new talks with outgoing Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek this week to try to negotiate a solution. Negotiations between the two are set to take place over the next two weeks.