Analyst: early elections not to advantage of any of the coalition parties

The latest flare-up between Public Affairs and the two senior parties Civic Democrats and TOP 09 appears to have taken the continued existence of the centre-right cabinet to the very brink. Are we close to early elections or did the smallest party in government, in trying to gain concessions, simply overplay its hand?

Public Affairs leaders, photo: CTK

Those are questions I put to Prague-based political analyst Erik Best.

“I think that the Public Affairs party was quite surprised by the reaction because there was a joint-effort by the finance minister, of TOP 09, and Prime Minister Petr Nečas to say they were not going to tolerate any form of blackmail and that in such a case they preferred the collapse of the government and early elections. I don’t think they were expecting that at all.

“Certainly Mr Nečas called Public Affairs’ bluff but I think he was bluffing too. He doesn’t really want the government to fall: it wouldn’t be to the advantage of any of the coalition parties to face early elections now.”

The Transportation Minister Pavel Dobeš made clear he would not respect the earlier decision by the Public Affairs leadership for its ministers to resign: is there a danger now of a split within the smallest government party?

Pavel Dobeš, photo: CTK

“It is certainly a possibility. The big question is whether Public Affairs would really go through with it. This raises the ante, because if say half of the party’s MPs were thrown out into the cold, it would change the equation a bit.”

Would that push the country a step closer to early elections?

“Well if they got enough votes, I think they would need eight, I think they could avoid early elections. But at the same time the cabinet would become very, very fragile. They would have only or two mandates to spare, so anytime there were a call for a no-confidence vote they would really have to make sure they had all their MPs present.”

Speaking last night on Czech TV, Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek of TOP 09 and the speaker of the lower house Miroslava Němcová of the Civic Democrats pulled no punches in their criticism: they basically said Public Affairs had been amateurs from the very beginning they entered the government and charged that they were the solely responsible for the government’s poor standing. Is that the case? To what degree is the party the coalition’s Achilles heel?

Miroslav Kalousek, photo: CTK

“I’d have to say that all three parties have to share the blame. We have Mr Kalousek, vice chairman of TOP 09 who has the problem of having proposed a VAT rate increase almost everyone is against. Then you have Mr Nečas of the Civic Democrats who has a scandal on his hands involving a parliamentarian and former Prague mayor and an influential lobbyist. So a clash of this sort, in a way, serves them all well because it draws attention away from the other headlines and other problems going on. By using tough language it helps to distract attention. All three of the existing coalition parties would suffer if new elections were held in June or July.”