Czech president says he isn't leader of opposition – so who is?
Czech President Petr Pavel has repeatedly denied that he is the de facto leader of the opposition, including in a major interview at the weekend. But if we accept the head of state’s words, who is actually PM Andrej Babiš’s main political opponent right now? I asked political scientist Petr Just why Mr. Pavel felt the need to make this denial.
“It’s a natural reaction to him being pushed into this position, especially by the current ruling political parties and their allies.
“They need to challenge him, they need to define themselves against him and this is the easiest way – labelling him as the opposition leader.”
So if we accept his position that he’s not the actual leader of the opposition, who is? For example, among the opposition parties the Civic Democrats have the most seats in the lower house, but the Mayors are maybe not far behind them, or in around the same place, in the opinion polls.
“This always depends on the angle that we actually take. On one hand, we have the Civic Democrats as the strongest opposition political party.
“On the other hand, it’s not just a matter of numerical or mathematical strength in the parliament – it’s also about how visible the party is, how it is acting as opposition challenger to the current ruling government.
“And from this point of view, I feel like the Mayors are currently actually doing a much more effective opposition job than the Civic Democrats.
“So if we look at it from this perspective, I would say that there is a certain competition as to who is going to be the leader of the opposition between the Civic Democrats and the Mayors.”
What about the Pirates? They’ve done a few high-profile stunts, like walking backwards into the lower house to express the idea the chamber is going backwards because of the new government. Do they and their leader Zdeněk Hřib have any claim to being the leaders of the opposition? They certainly seem to annoy Mr. Babiš a lot.
“In general, every opposition party wants to be the leader of the opposition, but not every party has such potential or the characteristics to be so.
“In the case of the Pirates, we are in a very specific situation. On one hand, they are definitely in opposition against Andrej Babiš and his government.
“On the other hand, they are also in opposition to the other political parties, so they are in something we could call 'double opposition'.
“That kind of weakens their position as a potential opposition leader, because the opposition already – from the logic of the outcome of the parliamentary elections – is a minority one.
“So to cause more splits in the opposition is not actually a smart and effective way to challenge the government and to work against the government.
“I was talking about the competition between the Mayors and the Civic Democrats for the position of opposition leader, but that doesn’t rule out that they still in some ways cooperate and coordinate their steps against the government.
“But the Pirates kind of stand aside from that.”
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