Social Democrats leader Paroubek does not rule out becoming chair of lower house

After initially rejecting the idea, opposition leader Jiří Paroubek now says he does not rule out becoming the chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, the newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes reported. At the weekend, Prime Minster Mirek Topolánek floated the idea of the leader of the Social Democrats chairing the lower house, in order to ensure the smoother running of the Czech Republic’s first presidency of the EU, from January to July next year. The current chairman is another Social Democrat, MP Miloslav Vlček.