The art of political consensus: can Czechs hope to learn or is it time to change the electoral system?

The complicated negotiations on forming a new coalition government have sparked fresh debate on the possibility of changing the country's electoral system from proportional representation to introduce more elements of a majority system, in order to ensure stronger and more stable governments in the Czech Republic.

The art of political consensus: can Czechs hope to learn or is it time to change the electoral system?

Two factors have fuelled this debate. One is the fragile position of the emerging government coalition with its parliamentary majority of just one vote. The other is the growing influence of the largely unreformed Communist Party which will gain a lot of clout if the emerging fragile coalition decides to lean on it for support.

President Klaus said on Thursday that the growing influence of the communists had further decreased the space to form "reasonable" government coalitions and that the time was ripe for a change of the electoral system.

President Klaus used to be leader of the strongest right-wing opposition party, the Civic Democrats, which have been pushing for such a change for years. Petr Necas is a leading figure in the party:

"The other political parties are afraid of this system because they lack the self confidence to go through majority system voting, but we do hope that public pressure will change their opinion because I think it is very clear that the Czech Republic will need a strong majority government. And the only way to achieve this is to change our electoral system."

Vaclav Klaus

With all parties apart from the Civic Democrats having serious reservations about electoral reform, the chances of pushing through such a change at the present time are virtually nil. But, purely theoretically - could such a change really solve the country's problems? Most political analysts feel not. Professor Ladislav Cabada argues that Italy is a prime example of the fact that changing to a system with strong majority elements does not guarantee a stable government. Diverse parties merge to secure a better chance of winning - but after elections the unity quickly disintegrates. Professor Vladimira Dvorakova of the Prague School of Economics also thinks the Czech Republic should go down a different road.

"There is a tendency in majority systems to form a two-party system with one party forming the Cabinet and the other forming the opposition. This is probably the only advantage you can find and mainly in new democracies there are a lot of challenges involved because you don't nurture a political culture that would accept compromise as something that is positive. And it is very important for the political elite to learn that they need to compromise in politics. Otherwise it could result in society being divided into the winners and the losers. As for fear of communist influence - well, there will be more protest votes, and you can never be sure that the communists themselves would not win one day. In a deeper crisis this could actually happen. So a change of the electoral system would not eliminate the communists if they are already in a strong position."