President says he will not accept PM's resignation

President Klaus has said he will not accept Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek's resignation until the new lower house of parliament is fully functional. The prime minister announced this week that he would tender his resignation on Monday, triggering the fall of his government and opening the way for a new administration. However the balance of forces in the lower house -where the centre-left and centre right now have 100 seats each - has made it impossible to elect a new leadership and will make it difficult for the centre-right coalition headed by the Civic Democrats to be voted into office. President Klaus said that it would be utterly irresponsible to accept the prime minister's resignation under such circumstances.