Social Democrats to reject Czech Army’s Afghan missions

The re-elected Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek has said his party will reject the extension of the Czech Army’s missions in Afghanistan. Mr Paroubek, who was re-elected the head of the opposition Social Democrats at a party’s congress in Prague on Saturday, said Social Democrats would follow the results of an inner-party poll in which 82 percent of the party’s local organizations said the missions should end, while 87 percent of them believe that the numbers of Czech troops in Afghanistan should decrease radically. The Czech Republic has more than 1,000 troops participating in the NATO ISAF mission in Afghanistan.

The three-day party congress, which concluded at Prague’s Industrial Palace on Sunday, also elected four deputy chairmen, including shadow foreign minister Lubomír Zaorálek and Brno mayor Roman Onderka. The Social Democrat party congress however failed, after several rounds of voting, to elect a fifth deputy, who must be a woman according to the party statutes; the remaining deputy chair will be appointed by party leadership.