The Czech Republic. One more defenestration

Vladimir Spidla quits as prime minister

JUST 15 years after the Velvet Revolution, the Czech Communist Party has found a new way to threaten democracy: by getting dangerously popular. In the European elections last month the Communists finished second, with 20% of the vote, more than twice the score of the ruling Social Democrats, who came fifth. That lamentable performance provoked the resignation this week of the prime minister, Vladimir Spidla, and his government.

Other Czech parties scorn the Communists as “undemocratic”, and refuse to do business with them. But the more votes the Communists win, the more undemocratic this cartel against them starts to look. President Vaclav Klaus has insisted on shutting them out of talks to form a new government, even though they hold one-fifth of the seats in parliament. How much of the vote would they need to be included? “51%”, retorts an aide to Mr Klaus.

This shunning is understandable. The Czech Communist Party, unlike many siblings in other countries, has not renounced its past, its Marxist ideology, or its name. Its 100,000 members are nostalgic for the days when they ruled by force, and suspicious of their country's ties with the West. They want the Czech Republic out of NATO, which it joined in 1999, and are in two minds about the European Union, which it joined this year.

In many ways, pariah status suits the Communists. They can pile up the criticism and the protest votes without having to produce workable policies of their own. But the system pays for their free ride. A chunk of the national vote is thrown away. The need to work round them leads other parties into improbable and unsustainable alliances, such as the coalition that failed this week. After the 2002 general election, the Social Democrats and Communists could together have formed a strong left-wing majority in parliament. Instead, the Social Democrats cooked up a coalition with small centre-right and right-wing parties. This ill-made souffle has now collapsed halfway through its term. Months will be wasted in attempts to form a new coalition, perhaps from the very same parties. The attempts may well fail, forcing an early election; even if they succeed, the new government may not last.

The Czech Republic needs to find a way out of this frozen conflict with its Communists. One answer might be the emergence of a Social Democrat leader with the political genius to lure the Communists into an alliance and then to humiliate them, as Franois Mitterrand did to the French Communists in 1981. The new party boss, Stanislav Gross, 34, may be too green for this. Colleagues say he will continue the boycott for fear of going down in history as the man who let the Communists back. Better by far if he became known as the man who punctured their bubble.

Article discusses the reasons for and significance of the resignation of Vladimir Spidla as Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, June 2004. Article says the country needs to challenge the Czech Communist Party.