PREVIEW: Czech Republic's senior ruling party faces election test

By Katerina Zachovalova Oct 13, 2010, 14:13 GMT

Prague - Czechs are to vote Friday and Saturday in municipal and Senate elections, which may produce an unpleasant loss for the country's senior ruling party in the capital, Prague, after two decades of landslide victories there.

Some pre-election surveys suggest that Prime Minister Petr Necas' centre-right Civic Democrats could lose Prague to its coalition partner, the new right-wing TOP 09 led by Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

TOP 09 is more conservative and its programme calls for tougher austerity measures than the Civic Democrats. But the party's main appeal lies with its aristocratic leader, who is seen as honest and uncorruptible.

Czechs are also to elect 27 new members for parliament's 81-seat upper house, the Senate, with the Civic Democrats having the most to lose as the terms of 19 of its senators will expire.

A significant loss could weaken the party's chances of pushing through its own presidential candidate in 2013.

The poll is expected to show whether voters still harbour anger toward the large, established parties of the post-Communist era - the Civic Democrats and its rival, the Social Democrats - over mutual squabbling and corruption scandals that have tainted them.

Both parties recorded substantial losses in the June general election. But the Civic Democrats found willing coalition partners among the country's new protest groupings, including TOP 09.

The disillusionment of the traditional support base of these two parties is expected to cause a further shift to the right in Prague. In the June poll, Schwarzenberg's TOP 09 triumphed over the scandal- tainted Civic Democrats.

The latest survey by the Factum Invenio polling agency for the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes shows TOP 09 has a 5.2-per-cent lead over the second-placed Civic Democrats.

'Prague is a right-wing city. The old saying goes that (former Civic Democrat leader and Czech President Vaclav) Klaus' tennis racket could win Prague,' said political scientist Vladimira Dvorakova. 'Now it is Schwarzenberg's pipe.' Klaus is known to be a keen tennis player, while Schwarzenberg smokes a pipe.

It did not help the Civic Democrats that they were unable to come up with a heavyweight candidate for mayor for months, while TOP 09 enlisted respected former central bank chief Zdenek Tuma, 49, early on.

Just weeks before the polls, the Civic Democrats finally put forward gynecologist Bohuslav Svoboda, 66, who has no significant political experience.

Other moves aimed at revival drew harsh criticism.

In their Prague campaigns, the two established rivaling parties have attempted to resurrect themselves with populist rhetoric 'typical for the extreme right', observed Dvorakova, who teaches at the Prague-based University of Economics.

While the Social Democratic candidates in one of Prague's districts promised to drive away drug addicts, the capital's outgoing Civic Democratic council approved a plan under which the city's homeless would be moved to camps on the outskirts of town.

The opposition Social Democrats have also asked voters to start punishing Necas' austerity-driven cabinet for planned spending cuts and tax hikes. While that may work in other cities, the left is unlikely to sway Prague.

Some analysts are not really surprised that change in Prague may be around the corner.

'I am surprised that it has not come earlier,' said political scientist Petr Just, who lectures at the Metropolitan University Prague. 'It is not usual in a democracy that one party holds power for 20 years.'

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