Third attempt to elect a new Czech president underway

Czech presidential elections are underway at a special joint session of parliament at the Prague Castle, the third attempt to elect a new president in the last six weeks. Two earlier attempts ended in stalemate. Two candidates now are vying for the presidency, former prime minister Vaclav Klaus and philosophy professor Jan Sokol. Radio Prague's Rob Cameron has been covering the joint-session at Prague castle and he indicated early on that the election was extremely difficult to predict.

Jan Sokol, photo: CTK

"It's still very much too close to call, I've spoken to a number of MPs, both from the governing coalition and from the opposition, and most of them have said I'm sorry, it's still 50/50, it's too close to call, wait and see..."

Why exactly is it so hard to tell?

"Basically, it's a bit of an ironic situation...because the governing coalition, whose candidate is Jan Sokol, they do have a majority in both the Lower House and the Senate, in theory they could elect him in a matter of minutes, they could elect him in the first round. The problem is that the largest party in the ruling coalition, the Social Democrats, there are deep divisions in that party, and Mr Sokol, or indeed any other candidates put forth by the ruling coalition, can not rely on the unanimous support of all the senators or the MPs in the government, which makes this exercise so hard to predict, how it's going to turn out."

What about, on the other hand, Mr Klaus's chances: whose support is he relying on?

Vaclav Klaus, photo: CTK

"I've spoken to a number of analysts on this and Mr Klaus, to be elected, would need the support of a) all the communist deputies and the two communist senators, that is by no means a foregone conclusion that they are all going to support him; b) he would need to get through to the second round, that's more likely, that will probably happen. But, in that case, when he does get through to the second round he needs a substantial number of coalition deputies to rebel against the prime minister and vote for him. Then, it all comes down to mathematics: if enough coalition deputies do rebel, do support Mr Klaus, then he has a good chance of getting elected. The analysts I have spoken to have said this is very unlikely, and it's much more likely in a situation in which the two men go through the second round, that no one will be elected, and we'll have another inconclusive election."

Which would mean that eventually steps would be made towards direct elections...

"That's exactly right. Most parties, except for the Communists now, are saying if this third attempt fails then we're going to go for the direct vote. It's what the people want: the latest opinion polls show that some 88% of the Czech public wants to elect their president, they don't want to leave it up to their politicians who have failed so miserably in the last six weeks to come up with someone. They want to do it themselves, and I think under such circumstances it would be very difficult for politicians to deny them such an opportunity."