Civic Democrat leader shuns grand coalition

The leader of the Civic Democrats, Mirek Topolánek, has shunned the possibility of forming a grand coalition with Social Democrats after October’s early general elections. Mr Topolák told Prima TV on Sunday that he would only consider such a move as an “emergency solution” and that a grand coalition would be a “defeat of politics”. The Civic Democrat leader said that he would prefer to form a coalition with the new conservative TOP 09 party, headed by the former foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg. Mr Topolánek also rejected allegations that he would like to become the new EU commissioner for the Czech Republic.