The Czech Republic. A government in trouble

Date: 02/08/03

The Czechs' prime minister holds on

THE loss of even one MP matters greatly to a government with a one-seat majority in parliament. Hence the dismay when Josef Hojdar, a Czech Social Democrat, said last week that he was leaving the party's parliamentary caucus, though not the party itself, to vote as he wanted in future. His move, in protest at government proposals for spending cuts, has cost the ruling centre-left coalition its majority on paper in the lower house, and raised doubts over planned fiscal reforms needed to prepare the Czech Republic for euro-zone entry later this decade. It may also, by weakening the centre-left, spur an eventual realignment in national party politics, strengthening both the right and the Communists.

At the very least it means more headaches for Vladimir Spidla, the Czech prime minister. He claimed last week that the coalition government formed by his Social Democrats and two smaller parties, one centrist and one liberal, could still survive intact until 2006, the end of the current parliament's four-year term. But he cannot always control his own party, let alone the parliament. He could not, for example, unite the Social Democrats behind a single candidate when parliament elected a new state president in February, with the result that a right-wing opposition leader and former prime minister, Vaclav Klaus, scooped up the job vacated by Vaclav Havel. (Mr Havel's recreations in his well-deserved retirement included attending a 60th birthday party in Prague at the weekend for a British musician, Sir Mick Jagger.)

The challenges to Mr Spidla's authority, from inside and outside the party, are sure to intensify now that his position has weakened further. The biggest opposition party, the right-wing Civic Democrats, has already threatened a vote of no-confidence for September.

Mr Spidla might hope to find new friends and partners on the right or the left. Many in his party still look back nostalgically to the alliance with the Civic Democrats that kept the Social Democrats in power from 1998 to 2002. Others would prefer co-operation with the country's unreformed but increasingly popular Communist Party, creating a strong new left-wing block. The Communists are the third-biggest party in parliament. But by steering his party very far to the left or the right Mr Spidla would risk splitting it, perhaps fatally. Its right wing would not countenance an alliance with the Communists, any more than its left would welcome renewed ties with the Civic Democrats.

That leaves Mr Spidla the option of trying to muddle through the next three years with a weak government in an ill-disciplined parliament. Many think he will do just that, helped by constitutional rules making it difficult to dissolve the parliament. It will be terrible timing for such an adventure. The Czechs are bracing themselves to join the European Union next year. They need a strong government to defend their interests and reform public finances - not a weak government concerned mainly with its own survival.

Mr Spidla's efforts to get the country ready for euro-zone entry in five to eight years' time include proposals for broad-based if modest spending cuts, and rises in some indirect taxes intended to cut the budget deficit from more than 6% of GDP last year to a planned 4% by 2006, just above the euro-zone ceiling of 3%. This was the legislation that upset Mr Hojdar, a left-winger from a poor region of the north, when it survived a first reading last week. The real fight will come as second and third readings approach in September: Mr Hojdar's revolt is a foretaste of the trouble Mr Spidla will face from trade unions, Communists and left-wing Social Democrats, if he sticks to his guns.

The Social Democrats' opponents are surveying the confusion with relish. A splitting or weakening of the party, scattering its voters to the right and the hard left, would suit the Civic Democrats and the Communists alike. The latter would hope to strengthen their grip on the left, the Civic Democrats to acquire fresh appeal as the party for all anti-Communists. As for Mr Spidla, sniffs one Czech commentator, history may place him among the “unfortunate” politicians: those who mean well but cannot command.