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In reaction to the exit poll results, Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla said the government was prepared to hold out to the end of its four-year mandate in 2006 but he acknowledged his party's defeat.

"I can see a number of reasons for our party's poor showing. It is very difficult to take over in such a turbulent time. Also, at the moment our party is searching for new, more modern policies. The third reason, I think, is the extremely low turnout, favouring parties with a hard core of faithful voters, which isn't the case of the Social Democrats."

The opposition Civic Democrats' top candidate for the European Parliament, Jan Zahradil, called the election result a symbolic "vote of no confidence" for the government. He said the reason behind his party's election success was the fact that they presented a consistent European manifesto and also a strong opposition alternative to the policies of the Social Democrat-led government. Mr Zahradil also commented on the low turnout.

"Many people don't know exactly what the European Union will mean for them, both in the positive and negative senses. Such people are less motivated to come out and vote. I think the low turnout is also a response to the pro-European propaganda of the last few years."

The Justice Minister Karel Cermak has announced his decision to hand in his resignation. He said the reason behind his move was the government's decision to cut end-of-year bonuses for judges. The 69-year-old former head of the Czech Bar Association was appointed Justice Minister in September 2003. He replaced Pavel Rychetsky who left the post to become the chairman of the Czech Republic's Constitutional Court.

The Czech Republic's top officials attended a memorial ceremony on Saturday on the site of Lidice, the Central Bohemian village that the Nazis razed to the ground 62 years ago in retaliation for the assassination of the Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich. Speaking at the ceremony, President Vaclav Klaus said that Europe had a new chance to overcome the wounds of the past. Both President Klaus and Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla criticised attempts at revising history and playing down the Lidice atrocity. On June 10th 1942, 173 men were shot and the women and children were transported to concentration camps. Of the children only seventeen survived.

Czech police are investigating two more football officials who have been implicated in a bribery scandal that erupted last month. Prosecutor Pavel Pukovec told Czech Radio that football referee Petr Rehor is suspected of having agreed to accept a bribe to favour Synot in its match against Zlin in the top Czech football division. Meanwhile an official of Synot, Igor Stefanko, is being prosecuted for offering a bribe of 200,000 crowns (about $8,000) to the Slovak referee Eduard Cichy to influence a March 13 match at which Synot faced Teplice. So far, seven people, five of them referees, have been accused in the scandal. If tried and convicted, they face up to two years in prison.