News | All stories

Analysts say the constitutional majority of left-wing parties in the Senate may slow down reforms but will not influence the country’s overall direction. Unicredit Bank analyst Pavel Sobíšek said the left-wing parties§ strengthened position in the upper chamber would start to be important if the same result were attained in the lower chamber after the next general elections. At present the Senate can only veto bills which the lower house has the power to override. Although the result of the Senate elections has further polarized the two chambers of Parliament there are no fears that this could influence investors who are far more sensitive to the political make-up of the lower house.

The speaker of the lower house, Miroslava Němcová, has said the government’s tax package must win approval by November 7th for next year’s state budget to be approved in time. The package of government proposed tax hikes is being blocked by six deputies from the prime minister’s own Civic Democratic Party who are against tax hikes in principle and argue that the party should respect its election promise to voters. The government claims the proposed VAT hike is essential for it to meet its fiscal target in 2013 – i.e. lower the gap in public spending to below 3 percent of GDP. In view of the fact that no compromise has been reached there have been calls from within the party for the vote on the crucial bill to be postponed until after the Civic Democrats’ party conference in the first week of November. The vote is scheduled to take place at a session of the lower house due to start on Tuesday.

Senators for the Social Democratic Party will file a complaint to the Constitutional Court against the introduction of electronic S-cards for pensions and welfare benefits. Speaking shortly after the party’s election victory in senate elections, party leader Bohuslav Sobotka said this would be one of the first of many government steps the party would try to get revised. The new S-card system has evoked enormous controversy, with critics pointing out that pensioners living in small villages may have problems getting to a money machine and would inevitably lose money on the transaction from their already meagre pensions. Senators moreover point out that people will be forced to have an account at Česká Sporitelna -selected by the government to run the operation - even if they already have an account elsewhere.

TOP 09 leader Karel Schwarzenberg has said he is satisfied with the two seats his party won in the senate elections. The TOP 09 leader noted that in view of the fact that his party was established just over three years ago the four seats it now has in the Senate can be regarded as a success. The party’s two new senators are Jiří Šesták from the Ceske Budejovice constituency and Ludek Jěništa from the Benešov consitutency.

Czech-Japanese entrepreneur Tomio Okamura, who won a seat in the Senate in the weekend elections, has announced his candidacy for president. Mr.Okamura who is a well-know personality in the Czech Republic said that his success in the senate elections had convinced him he could do a lot for the country by entering public service. Mr. Okamura made it clear he would be losing out financially by entering politics but said it was time for people like him to show initiative and turn around the negative course of developments. Unlike many of his rivals, Mr. Okamura refused to invest in billboards and other traditional forms of campaigning opting instead to meet with voters in person and discuss their concerns.

Government officials, former dissidents, family and friends on Sunday attended the unveiling of a plaque to Zdeněk Urbánek, novelist, translator, Charter 77 signatory and a close friend of the late Vaclav Havel. The plaque was unveiled on the 95th anniversary of Zdeněk Urbánek’s birth and placed on the Prague building where he lived and worked. His former home, a frequent meeting place of Czech dissidents, is linked to the birth of Charter 77. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, Defence Minister Alexander Vondra, actor Pavel Landovský and other close friends of Zdeněk Urbánek from the dissident years.

The 16th annual conference Forum 2000 opens in Prague on Sunday evening, the first to be held without its founder, the late ex-president Václav Havel. In accordance with his wishes the tree-day event will examine the relationship between the media and democracy. The conference will also address key aspects of Václav Havel´s legacy and discuss ways to build upon it. More than a hundred policymakers, intellectuals and journalists will participate in open discussions dealing with these issues. Among the participants this year are the Czech-born former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, the head of Tibet's exiled government Lobsang Sangay, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Suzana Grubješić and former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans.

Czech left-wing parties have secured a constitutional majority in the Senate, the upper house of Parliament. Elections took place in 27 constituencies in which the Social Democrats won 13 seats, the Communist Party won in one constituency and a candidate for the centre-left party of Citizens Rights of Milos Zeman also got one seat in the upper chamber. This brings the overall number of left-wing senators in the upper house to 49.

The second round of elections to the Senate was another crushing disappointment for the ruling Civic Democrats who entered the second round with 13 candidates but only won four seats, bringing the overall number of Civic Democrat senators to 15, the lowest ever. Prime Minister Petr Necas said the Civic Democrats should accept the defeat with humility and analyze its cause. He thanked voters for not strengthening the role of the Communists who went into the second round of elections with 12 candidates but only won 1 seat. The rest of the constituencies are divided among small parties and independents.

Social Democrat leader Bohuslav Sobotka thanked voters for his party’s election victory and pledged to use the party’s newfound strength in the upper chamber to prevent controversial and socially unjust reforms. He said the outcome of both the regional and senate elections was a clear signal that the public was unhappy with the present government’s course and would help increase the pressure on the Nečas government to resign from office. The Social Democrats will now have 46 senators in the upper chamber, the highest number any party has achieved so far.

Air pollution is reported to have worsened severely in parts of Moravia and Silesia overnight with the concentration of dust particles in the air far exceeding permitted norms at 13 of 15 monitoring stations. According to data from the Czech Hydro-meteorological Institute the concentration of harmful substances in the air is more than double the permitted norm in Ostrava and Karvina where the authorities have advised elderly people and children to stay indoors as much as possible. The situation is being closely monitored by city hall which has the right to call a smog alert and ask industrial plants to scale-down production.