In wake of Civic Democrats election rout, president criticizes PM

Following the Civic Democrats’ defeat in Saturday’s Senate elections, President Václav Klaus has come out in criticism of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek. Speaking on the television station Prima on Sunday, Mr Klaus, himself an honorary patron of the Civic Democrats, said that the party’s routing in Saturday’s elections was nothing other than a ‘referendum on Topolánek’. Mr Klaus refused to say whether he would prefer to see someone else at the head of the party, but did say that Mr Topolánek, in his opinion, needed to act less arrogantly. The Civic Democratic Party’s leadership is meeting on Sunday to discuss whether to hold an extraordinary congress, at which, among other things, a new leader could be elected.