Czech government toppled in no-confidence vote

The government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek has fallen after losing a vote of no-confidence tabled by the opposition Social Democrats. The motion was carried by the bare minimum of 101 votes, when rebel Civic Democrat MPs Vlastimil Tlustý and Jan Schwippel and ex-Greens Věra Jakubková and Olga Zubová cast their votes with the 97 Social Democrat and Communist MPs in the lower house.

Prime Minister Topolánek said on Monday that if the government fell he would expect President Václav Klaus to charge him with forming a new government; if that failed, he would then push for fresh elections in the summer. Mr Topolánek has rejected the idea of a caretaker government. However, much remains unclear about what will follow Tuesday’s dramatic vote.

The fall of the government comes almost exactly halfway through the Czech Republic’s six-month presidency of the European Union. The prime minister told Czech Television he believed the presidency could function effectively, even without a stable government.

The three-party coalition government, made up of Mirek Topolánek’s Civic Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Greens, was appointed in January 2007.