News

Around 200 people gathered in Nymburk on Saturday morning to protest against the Communist Party as well as President Zeman, who attended the party's congress. More demonstrators are expected during the day, with as many as 600 having signed up to take part, the Czech News Agency wrote.

Protestors, the agency said, had carried signs with slogans reading "You should be ashamed", "Throw Miloš in the bin" and "Czechia isn't Russia" in opposition to the president's attendance at the convention as well as his pro-Russia policies. The crowd also shouted slogans against the communists, labeling the party the "same gang of people as always".

Organisers of the event also arranged for a tractor with a flatbed trailer to be parked from across from City Hall in Nymburk to be used as a pulpit of sorts by demonstrators, parodying similar communist-era practices and imagery.

The Communist Party is due to elect a new leadership at its congress in Nymburk following dismal results in parliamentary elections last October. In the election, the party clinched just 7.76 percent of the vote for 15 seats in the lower house.

Despite the result, the party is now expected to play a key role in the formation of the new government, either a coalition between ANO and the Social Democrats or ANO alone, who lack enough seats for a majority in the Chamber of Deputies.

With tacit support from the Communists, a minority government of ANO and the Social Democrats would be able to rely on 108 MPs in the 200-member house. Support, however, is only likely with concessions from the emerging government.

At the convention, chairman Vojtěch Filip is facing challengers for the post of party leader, including a bid by Euro MP Kateřina Konečná and Mr Filip's close rival and head of the party's "orthodox" wing Josef Skála. Filip has been chairman of the party for 12 years.

Church bells were rung in the Czech capital to mark the repatriation of Cardinal Josef Beran's remains to his homeland, almost 50 years after his death in Italy. The former archbishop of Prague was laid to rest in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican after his death in 1969, when the communists in power in Czechoslovakia refused to allow his remains to be returned home. His last wish was to be buried in the country of his birth.

On Friday, his coffin began the journey home aboard a special military plane after a liturgy in the Vatican. The plane and accompanying delegation landed at Prague's Kbely military airport shortly after 6 pm. They were greeted by Defence Minister Karla Šlechtová, the chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, General Josef Bečvář, the Speaker of the upper house Milan Štěch and others.

A motorcade then accompanied the cardinal's coffin to the Archbishop's seminary in Prague Dejvice and later to the Strahov Monastery.

Prague Archbishop and Cardinal Dominik Duka will present a mass for Cardinal Beran on Saturday and on Monday his coffin will be placed in a sarcophagus in the tomb of Prague Archbishops at St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle.

A commemorative plaque, meanwhile, will be installed in St Peter’s Basilica as a permanent memorial to the Czech cardinal whose name became a symbol of resistance to both the Nazi and communist regimes.

The acting prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has pledged an increase in spending on education of CZK 30 billion next year. He made the comment during a meeting with students on Friday. The latter raised concerns over how Mr. Babiš plans to fund a promised reduction in travel for students.

Student leaders said rather than taking CZK 400 from the Ministry of Education’s budget for that purpose the government should spend the money on teacher training and pay. The prime minister reportedly told them that he was still considering the matter.