Lower house holds constituent session

The newly elected lower house of the Czech Parliament began holding its constituent session on Monday afternoon, 30 days after general elections in which the winning ANO party took just under 30 percent of the vote. Speaking ahead of the meeting, ANO chief Andrej Babiš said his party had been left with no alternative but to form a minority government after being “rejected” by the other groupings in the Chamber of Deputies.

Mr. Babiš said he would present his government’s policy statement to the other parties after he had outlined ANO’s intentions to President Miloš Zeman.

Negotiations to date suggest that Radek Vondráček of ANO will become be elected to the important speaker’s chair. The Civic Democrats, the Christian Democrats, TOP 09 and the Mayors and Independents have formed a group called Democratic Bloc and say they will not vote for Mr. Vondráček.

TOP 09’s Miroslav Kalousek said the vote on the speaker’s position would reveal who the real opposition was. Deputy speakers are also due being voted on, as is the composition of various committees.

On Monday it was decided that all of the record nine parties in the lower house would have seats on the 19-member Mandates and Immunity Committee. The session was then adjourned until Wednesday morning.