Left wins Czech election, but right may end up ruling

THE left-wing Social Democrats eked out a slim victory in the Czech Republic's parliamentary election last night, but centre-right parties won more votes overall.

The Czech election agency said the results indicated the Social Democrats, led by former prime minister Jiri Paroubek, would not be able to govern alone and might not even be able to form a new government.

This gives smaller parties that cleared the 5 per cent threshold needed to gain parliamentary representation potential prominence as possible coalition partners.

The statistics office said the Social Democrats won 22.1 per cent of the vote while their major rival, the conservative Civic Democratic Party, received 20.2 per cent.

With more than 99.8 per cent of the votes from the nation's nearly 15,000 polling stations counted, a new conservative party, TOP 09, won 16.7 per cent, followed by the Communists with 11.3 per cent and another new party, the centrist Public Affairs, with 10.9 per cent. Pre-election polls had predicted a much wider margin of victory – about 30 per cent – for the Social Democrats.

President Vaclav Klaus was likely to ask Paroubek, chairman of the winning party, to try to form a new government, but with centre-right parties winning more votes, his chances were uncertain.

"This cannot be called a success," Paroubek acknowledged. "This country is on the way towards a right-wing coalition."

The Communists are expected to give tacit support to a minority Social Democratic government. However, the other parties have ruled out co-operating with Paroubek's party, citing what they called his irresponsible populist promises, including an extra payments to pensioners and an end to fees for doctors' visits.

The Social Democrats want to adopt the euro currency in 2015 or 2016, increase corporate taxes from 19 to 21 per cent and adopt a new personal tax of 38 per cent for the highest income earners.

The country has been run by a caretaker government since a three-party coalition government led by the Civic Democrats lost a no-confidence vote in March 2009, just days before US president Barack Obama visited Prague and in the middle of the country's EU presidency.

This has been the longest period without an elected government that the Czech Republic has experienced since the political turmoil that followed the end to communist rule in 1989.