Czech Republic: President Václav Klaus elected for a further five years

In the third round of the run-off election on 15 February 2008, Václav Klaus, 66, President of the Czech Republic, was re-elected for a further five years by both houses of parliament in Prague with a small but sufficient majority. His re-election has been accompanied by fierce political debate.

Small majority for Klaus

The run-off election ran smoothly. At the outset, MEP Jana Bobošíková, candidate for the Communist Party, withdrew her candidature as she had no chance of winning. Václav Klaus was then able to hold onto 141 votes throughout the three election rounds. This small majority was just sufficient to ensure his re-election in the third round. Apart from the governing ODS party, which nominated him and which Klaus is the honorary chairman of, he was able to win the support of some Christian Democrats, independents and the Social Democrat Evžen Snítilý, who refuses to say why he voted for Klaus. Jiří Paroubek, head of the opposition Social Democratic Party, suggests that the reigning ODS had exerted psychological pressure on Snítilý and bought his vote.

Defeat for economic expert Švejnar

Klaus’ independent opponent, émigré economic expert Jan Švejnar, 55, won 111 votes in the last round of the run-off election. He is a Czech-American economics professor at the University of Michigan, who emigrated to the USA from Communist Czechoslovakia at the age of 18 and made his career there. He was nominated by the Greens and was also supported by the Social Democrats. The Communists voted for him in the first round of the run-off election, but abstained in the third round. Olga Zubová of the Greens was indisposed and could not vote.

Majority for direct presidential election

The recent presidential election in the Czech Republic was accompanied by threats and blackmail in Parliament. Several MPs are said to have received anonymous letters containing bullets or gunpowder with death threats. The BBC in London spoke in this context of Mafia methods. Czech media described these developments as shameful. According to political experts, opinion polls have long confirmed that the majority of Czechs are in favour of direct presidential elections.

Media regard result as confirmation for Topolánek

Leading European media such as the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung regard the re-election of President Václav Klaus as a confirmation in office, at least for the time being, of Prime Minister and ODS head Mirek Topolánek, whose position and the continuation of the coalition government in Prague would have been in jeopardy had Klaus been defeated. The nomination by the Greens of an independent and highly respected economics professor in the USA presented grave problems for the ODS, and the coalition government, the newspaper claimed, and had made serious inroads on the climate of the coalition.

New tensions and crises expected

The re-election of Václav Klaus does not put an end to the problems, reports wieninternational.at correspondent in Prague, Jan Krcmár. In the first place, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek promised the Christian Democrats that their controversial party head Jiří Čunek would return to Parliament if Klaus were re-elected. Since then, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, who was nominated by the Greens, has threatened to resign.

Second, Klaus is certain to remain critical of the EU, which could cause problems between Prague and Brussels during the Czech EU Chairmanship in 2009.

Information:

Václav Klaus – top politician for 19 years Prof. Dipl. Ing. Václav Klaus, was born in Prague in 1941. He studied foreign economics at the Economic University in Prague and subsequently in Italy and the USA. He became a member of the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy in 1964. In 1970 he was obliged to abandon his research activities for political reasons and joined the Czechoslovak State Bank, where he worked for several years. Towards the end of 1987 he resumed  his academic activities, working at the Prognostics Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague. His political career began in December 1989 when he became Minister of Finance in the federal government of the time. In October 1991 he became deputy Prime Minister in the Government of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. At the end of 1990 he was elected chairman of the Civic Forum, the strongest political party of the time. After this party had been dissolved in April 1991, he was one of the co-founders of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), which he headed from early December 2002. He was Prime Minister from 1992 to 1997, during which he was active in the splitting of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic and the emergence of an independent Czech Republic. He resigned in November 1997 after the collapse of the coalition government in the wake of an economic and financial crisis. With the defeat of the ODS in the early elections called in 1998, he became chairman of the lower house of the Czech Parliament for four years. On 28 February 2003 he was elected President of the Czech Republic. His predecessor and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003) was Václav Havel. He is married with two sons and five grandchildren.

 

Link-Tipp

Czech Parliament ODS CSSD