Prague: things fall apart as Greens turn over a new leaf

The Green-right wing minority coalition that seemed something of a certainty after the Czech elections now seems to be falling apart according to the morning papers in Prague (LN, MfD 4 August). Frustrated that ODS leader Topolánek abandoned the idea of moving towards early elections - agreed with his two smaller partners – after face to face meetings with Social Democrat leader Paroubek, raised the possibility of an ODS only minority government or a ‘semi-political’ caretaker government and agreed further 1:1 talks with Paroubek, the Greens are now saying publicly that they may withdrawn from the coalition agreement and have a press conference scheduled for this afternoon. Topolánek says he won’t do the dirty on them and that a temporary Green/right coalition is an option on the table.

The Christian Democrats are also asserting themselves, having already rejected the minority-government-supported-by-rainbow option discussed in a previous post. Meanwhile the two months President Klaus gave Topolánek to form a government have expired. We seem to be back at square one with a ‘semi-political’ caretaker government of experts with a mild Civic Democrat flavour the most likely outcome, I think. But, of course, then where do we go? Probably straight into the politics of electoral reform some time next years, as constitutional laws would need to passed and that takes months.