News

Customs officers have confiscated around 3,000 pairs of counterfeit brand shoes worth several million crowns in shopping centres around the country. All the fake brand products belonged to one company based in the eastern city of Ostrava, according to the CTK news agency owned by a Polish businessman.

Civic Democrat leader and prime minister designate Mirek Topolanek is planning to propose one of three types of governments to President Vaclav Klaus next week. The first is a political government with ministers from all parliamentary parties except the Communists. The second is a minority Civic Democrat government that will also include independent experts. The third government that Mr Topolanek is considering is a caretaker government.

Speaking on Czech TV on Sunday, Mr Topolanek said one of the three cabinets would lead the country to early elections, preferably to be held around April or June next year. The type of government that he will propose next Friday will depend on the results of negotiations that will take place in the next few days.

An opinion poll commissioned by Czech Television suggests that most Czechs would blame the Social Democrats for failed post-election talks with the Civic Democrats. Some 48 percent of those polled by the STEM agency blamed the Social Democrats, who came second in the June elections; 43 percent on the other hand said that the Civic Democrats, who won the elections, were responsible. While it was mainly the elderly and people with a lower education who supported the Social Democrats, younger respondents with a higher education and people with successful jobs supported the Civic Democrats. 51 percent of those polled also said that the Civic Democrats should go into opposition following failed post-election negotiations.

President Vaclav Klaus has called a meeting with the leaders of all parliamentary parties for next week but noted he would not intervene in government negotiations. Speaking to journalists during a visit to an exhibition in the town of Ceske Budejovice, Mr Klaus said the meeting with party leaders was called because the political turns of the last few days had taken him by surprise. But the Czech President also reiterated on Saturday that politicians should not be held responsible for the political deadlock that the country has been battling since the elections in early June. Their attempts at forming a majority government are hindered by the fact that the number of seats in the lower house of Parliament is evenly divided between the left parties and the centre and right parties, Mr Klaus stressed.

Mr Klaus also said, with the current political situation, he cannot judge Christian Democrat leader Miroslav Kalousek for entering talks with the Social Democrats and seeking support from the Communists.