Press Review

All today's papers devote their front pages to the newly elected Czech President Vaclav Klaus and speculation about what his election will imply for the ruling coalition and its largest partner, the Social Democrats.

MLADA FRONTA DNES reports that Vaclav Klaus is preparing personal changes at the President's Office. Chancellor Ivo Mathe will be replaced by Mr Klaus's long-time friend and counsellor Jiri Weigl. The presidential office will also have a new spokesperson and four new heads of departments. MLADA FRONTA DNES also says that the president-elect is going to visit all fourteen regions of the Czech Republic in the coming weeks and the first foreign country President Klaus will visit is Slovakia. MLADA FRONTA DNES also reports that Mr Klaus is not planning to use his powers to grant a wide-ranging amnesty to prisoners.

On the topic of amnesty, LIDOVE NOVINY writes that Vaclav Klaus says he will also use his power of granting presidential pardons sparingly during his term. The paper also describes the atmosphere of disappointment prevailing in prisons across the Czech Republic where all hopes for a possible amnesty were dampened after the election of Vaclav Klaus. The paper writes that upon his first election in 1990, the former President Vaclav Havel granted amnesty to 23,000 prisoners out of the total number of 31,000 inmates in Czechoslovakia. In 1993, he amnestied 130 people and in 1998 Vaclav Havel gave a general pardon to 900 prisoners.

PRAVO, the only major paper which does not feature a photo of the president-elect on its front page today, says the Communist Party vice-chairman Miloslav Ransdorf is considering giving up his post because he is dissatisfied with the fact that some of his party colleagues voted for Mr Klaus in Friday's election. If it turns out that the majority of Communist legislators voted for Mr Klaus, Mr Ransdorf will consider resigning, PRAVO writes. How he wants to find out who voted for whom in a secret ballot, is anyone's guess, the paper adds.

LIDOVE NOVINY notes that the divisions within the Social Democratic Party will directly influence the functioning of the coalition government. Until the party convention, which will take place in four weeks, the ministers have suspended all work on controversial topics such as public finance reform or rent deregulation.

LIDOVE NOVINY also wonders about the future of the coalition government headed by Social Democrat Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla, saying his party now represents the weakest link in the coalition. The junior partners, the Christian Democrats and the Freedom Union, say they are unhappy about the current state of the coalition but, according to LIDOVE NOVINY, they deny claims that the government could fall.

If the faction within the Social Democrats still loyal to the ex-chairman Milos Zeman wins at the party convention, this could result in the forming of a minority government, LIDOVE NOVINY predicts. This government would then have to seek support for its legislation across the political spectrum. Another scenario some Social Democrats envisage according to the paper, is another power-sharing pact with the Civic Democrats - who, however, deny the possibility of any such arrangement.