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The head of the Christian Democrats Pavel Bělobrádek will stick with his pre-election promise and offer up his post at the party’s national conference this week, MP Jiří Mihola told journalists on Monday, adding it would not automatically mean the party leader’s resignation. The Christian Democrats fared worse than expected in the election at the weekend, losing four mandates and earning just 5.8 percent of the vote. Mr Bělobrádek had promised that if the result was worse than the last election, he would consider resigning. In the last election, the party received 6.88 percent. The party chairman responded by saying that he would wait for the meeting on Friday and stressed that Jiří Mihola was not his spokesman.

The head of TOP 09 Miroslav Kalousek has told the daily Právo that the ANO party, which won the election in the Czech Republic at the weekend, has four potential partners in the lower house which he said ANO could use to push through its policies, in his view the Freedom and Direct Democracy party, the Communists, Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats.

Kalousek said he had received a message from ANO leader Babiš about a potential meeting but said it would be absurd for him to travel to Průhonice, outside Prague, where Babiš, the likely next prime minister, is meeting with leaders of all the parties in the lower house.

Kalousek and Babiš have been long-time political foes who have done little to hide their personal animosity.

TOP 09 was part of the government after elections in 2010, but has seen a continuing loss of voters since. At the weekend, TOP 09 finished with only seven seats, barely over the five percent threshold.

Mr Kalousek is to announce his future plans as leader on Tuesday. TOP 09 is holding its party convention next month.

Editorial writers in a number of the Czech Republic’s leading dailies have addressed the poor showing of some traditional parties in the general elections. A commentator in Monday’s edition of Právo said Czech voters had radically turned their backs on groupings that held a monopoly on power or opposition for years. Meanwhile, Lidové noviny and Mladá fronta Dnes said the Social Democrats and TOP 09’s efforts to paint Andrej Babiš of election winners ANO as a bogeyman had proved a losing bet. The Social Democrats took only 7.3 percent in the elections and TOP 09 scored 5.3 percent.

Právo also said that the aggressive new parties ANO, Freedom and Direct Democracy and the Pirates had filled the hole left by the collapse of the traditional parties. However, the daily’s commentator said, this did not mean that the trio would now rule and shove their more traditional rivals completely out of the picture.

ANO have begun holding talks with other parties with a view to forming a new coalition government. Czech Television reported that ANO’s negotiating team, headed by party chief Andrej Babiš, had held the first such negotiations with the leader of the Communists, Vojtěch Filip, and other representatives of the party. The Communist leader said he had not discussed forming a coalition with ANO as the two parties' outlooks were so far apart.

Leaders of the Mayors and Independents also spoke to ANO on Sunday, though they said the focus was solely on the composition of the Chamber of Deputies. The Social Democrats are reported to be meeting ANO on Sunday evening.

ANO scored almost 30 percent of the vote in the general elections. Speaking after their landslide victory, Mr. Babiš said he was surprised his party had done so well and said he hoped President Miloš Zeman would charge him with forming a government.

In an interview with iDnes.cz, Mr. Babiš said his party was closest to the Civic Democrats, the Mayors and Independents group and the Czech Pirate Party. He said some elements of the programme of Freedom and Direct Democracy were also acceptable to ANO.

However, the heads of many other parties have expressed reluctance to enter a coalition headed by Mr. Babiš in view of the fact that he is facing criminal charges of abusing EU subsidies.

For his part, the ANO chief said the biggest problem in running the Czech state was coalition forming. He said it was a pity that the country did not have a majority electoral system that would allow for the effective functioning of the state and the government.

Mr. Babiš said, however, that changing the current system of proportional representation would not be priority for his party in negotiations on forming a new cabinet.