A new Czech president. Prickly Vaclav Klaus

Date: 08/03/03

Czech MPs choose a very different sort of president from the last one

THE election of Vaclav Klaus as the Czech president won't raise American hopes for a pliant “new Europe”. Where his predecessor, Vaclav Havel, was cuddly and accommodating, Mr Klaus, aged 61, will be prickly and adversarial. During his five-year spell as prime minister (first of Czechoslovakia, then of the Czech Republic after it split off) he declared himself a Thatcherite. Populist nationalist may be nearer the mark.

These days he is against a war in Iraq and calls Mr Havel misguided for backing the Americans. He will also be a thorn in the side of Brussels. He admits that Czech entry into the European Union is inevitable but bemoans the terms of entry. He dislikes Franco-German collusion and loathes what he sees as European federalism. He fears that the European constitution, now in the making, will be a vehicle for dodgy ideas.

Most Czechs are still astonished that Mr Klaus was elected at all. He probably would not have been, if they had been given a say. A quarter of his countrymen adore him but he annoys most of the rest. His free-market Civic Democrats lost last year's general election; his party got only 25% of the vote to the Social Democrats' 30%. After his defeat, Mr Klaus was hospitalised for “disorientation”. Few thought he would make a comeback, let alone grab the presidency.

Fortunately for him, the Czechs' system for finding a president came to his rescue. The Czech head of state is elected by secret ballot in the two houses of parliament. In the first round, in January, he took a slim lead in a much-divided lower house but trailed badly in the upper house. After several inconclusive results, he squeezed in this week by a single vote. His victory, a testament to feuds among his opponents, highlights the weakness of the Social Democrats' prime minister, Vladimir Spidla, whose party's own MPs back-stabbed each other throughout the process.

Mr Spidla now faces a vote of confidence. Mr Klaus has almost no executive power as president but can wheel and deal behind the scenes - and will certainly try to get the Social Democrats, who run a minority coalition government in partnership with a group led by Christian Democrats, out of government. But how?

Mr Klaus paid a heavy price for his election. Though he has long railed against the reviving Communists, who got 19% of the votes in last year's general election, he owes his presidency to a deal with them. Some may be drawn to his strongman style and nationalist language. Mr Klaus says he promised them nothing more than simple recognition. So his Civic Democrats are very unlikely to team up with them, while the parliamentary group led by the Christian Democrats is barely keener to gang up with Mr Klaus's lot. So expect a period of political turbulence.

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