Civic Democrats: Teenage kicks or mid-life crisis?

The principal party of the Czech centre-right, the Civic Democrats (ODS), have been celebrating the 20th anniversaty of their foundation. The party founded, by Václav Klaus in April 1991 from the right-wing anti-communist majority in the disintegrating Civic Forum movement, can probably lay claim to being Central and Eastern Europe's most enduring  newly formed post-1989 party. Certainly as far as major political players on the centre-right are concerned probably, only Hungary's Fidesz's can compete and in Fidesz's case ideological mutation in the mid-1990s from anti-communist liberal to conservative nationalist probably gives ODS the edge , even if the Czech Republic's more proportional electoral system has (thankfully) never seen ODS stack up Fidesz style absolute majorities in parliament.

However, the party's celebration of two decades as a political force, at which it was addressed by  current leader Prime Minister Petr Nečas, it founder and current Czech President Václav Klaus and 2002-10 leader  and ex-PM Miroslav Topolánek, seems to have been a rather more angst-ridden , divided and downbeat affair, than similar celebrations ten years ago. Then, having come through financial scandal under founder-leader Klaus and seasoned its Thatcherite neo-liberalism with dose of Czech nationalism, it was looking forward to election victory in 2002. It lost that election and, despite winning big in vote terms in 2006, has never managed to put together a stable majority government since. 1996 Ideological and strategic divisions - and the unsolved dilemma of how to manage its relationships with powerful informal networks of political ly connected business interests - were all on show at the event, which seems to have been the Czech right-wing version of the Three Tenors, albit with considerably less harmony on show. 

They are also thrown into sharp relief by the current woeful state of Petr Nečas's coalition, whose large  majority in parliament looks a good deal less solid given splits and relevations from within junior coalition party the populist anti-corruption party, Public Affairs (VV), where the waters have been muddied by accusations that the spilt in the party was not just due  to VV being in the pocket of ABL security firm , but was engineered in factions in ODS (although this seems less well documented that the role of ABL and its founder busienessman Vít Bárta in taking over VV as a vehicle).

For Klaus ODS's woes lie in its move under Topolánek away from his own patent mix of neo-liberalism and eurosceptic nationalism to embrace the political centre and themes such as civil sociey and environmental protection. Far better to do pragmatic power sharing deals with the left, than allow such ideologcal contagion. Having flirted with flat taxes and fiscal populism (does anyone remember the Blue Chance programme?), through a mixture of trail and error Topolánek adopted precisely this course as a means of broading ODS appeal, which despite touching 35% under his leadership, was not sufficient to deliver a workable majority - and tended to mobilise the left -  leaving him reliant on small parties like the declining Christian Democrats and faction-ridden Greens. 

Photo: Petr Novák, Wikipedia

Both parties exited parliament in the 2010 elections, leaving a new political landscape charcterised by an ODS drastically weakened by the rise of reformist challenger TOP09 and the need to ally with the opaque and unknown VV. This, Topolánek (opposite) argued, was really a step too far and agreed with Klaus that the usual emergency option of pragmatic co-operation with the Social Democrats, who are at least a known quantity, was preferable. The recent and farcical reshuffle of the Czech government and the bizarre hard-to-deal with behaviour of VV deputies and officials - none of whom seem to talk to each other without secretly taping other and offering some may-or-may-not-be-true revelation that crops up on the front pages the next day - makes the point.

But the issue running in parallel with the question of how expansive and centrist the Civic Democrats should or shouldn't be is that of corruption and clientelism. One interpretation of Czech politics  is simply to see the country's various parties (with the possible exception of the Communists) as   corrupt vehicles for shadowy, informal politico-business networks: this is, for example, forms the master narrative of daily  The Final Word commentary that accompanies the daily English press resume The Fleet Sheet, which speaks in a seemingly well informed way of the Czech Republic as an 'electro-state' dominated by powerful vested interests  (of which power generation company ČEZ is the most powerful) grouped more broadly into 'Five Families'.I deological divisions between parties and political programmes are, in this view, a mere facade as shadowy figures get their claws into parties and politicians, extracting billions one way or another through various soft, untransparent and uncompetitive deals  involving public property and policies which subvert the public interest.

Election poster attacking new anti-corruption parties 2010

There is plenty of evidence of an anecdotal, journalistic kind that such relationships exist. The press is full of it and poltiicians themselves report them. In the dying days of his premiership Topolánek condemned political 'godfathers' within (kmotří ) - powerful regional bosses tied to networks of vested interests, subverting the s(upposed ly) bottom-up democratic national organisations the Civic Democrats have traditional prided themselves on. But the real extent and scope of such relationships and the way they relate to programmatic/ideological issues that voters and politicians themselves spend a lot of time: on academic political science shows that parties offer basically ideologically coherent programmes and that voters register this and vote on them accordingly in ways which reflect wealth, class, education and age. In forming coalitions, parties clearly negotiate on programmatic issues, as well as the who-gets-what-ministry concerns that the simple model of pure corrupt clientelism would suggest. In the end, the Last Word model - even if we assume that it is based on the purest and most reliable of inside information - seems only to offer half the story, all too remincient of the darkly conspiratorial view of the world offered by the Czech far-right in days when it was electoral force. (Communists would probably also find it a good read, although with perhaps too little mention of global capital).

Pete Nečas      Photo: Aktron/Wikimedia Commons

What matters more, however, is the 'social fact' that parties - and certain partiers in particular such as the Civic Democrats - are seen as toxically contaminated by corrupt clientelistic networks. It would be interesting to try to quantify and track over time the public's views on the Civic Democrats and separate it out from the Czech public's massive and growing distrust of parties and politicians in general - but tack in Prague, the Three Tenors touched on this second, probably now more intractable problem for the party, which seems to overlap for public and politicians alike with Machivellian politics of smears, plots and spin of the type well illustrated by recent events around VV. None had very convincing answers. 

For Klaus - forgetting the financing scandals of 1990s - the problem seems to be one of  ideological slippage and lack of political backbone, belief and mission, creating the space for faction fighting and corrupt interest politics. For Topolánek, it was dealing with Public Affairs, legitimising what everyone knew  - or shrewdly suspected -  from the start to be a pocket party serving business interests with naked ambition of advancing private commerical interests. But VV would, of course, never have become a political force without the apparently burgeoning politics of 'godfathers', which he was unwilling or unable to prevent. Nečas's message was to recognise that voters have been looking for novelty but of Keep Calm and Carry On: the party was down but not out and its organisation, experience and programme would carry it through.

And the Civic Democrats' contribution to Czech democracy over the last two decades? Stable, conventional  model of party politics; a new liberal pro-market ideology defining the Czech centre-right; being there when the big decisions were made and getting some of them right, they all agreed. Having written on that elsewhere, I won't disagree. But, while Topolánek saw ODS as immature 20 year old with teenage lack of focus,  the party, in fact, seems dangerously flabby and middle-aged. 

In the end, I do wonder if the Civic Democrats will be around in recognisable form in another twenty years. Or another ten.

Czech Republic: What the elections mean

So, what does the Czech 'earthquake election' mean for Czech and Central European politics? As with the famous Ho-Chi Minh quote on the French Revolution, it is basically too early to tell - and probably will be for about another 10 or 20 years, but, I think, there four sets of issues/consequences to watch and think through.

1. A sudden and unprecedented (but not irreversible?) decline of (big) established parties

As all commentators have noticed, the election is an earthquake in Czech politics because of the simultaneous fall in the votes of the two big parties, that have been the pillars of the Czech party system for the last 15-20 years : the Civic Democrats (ODS) and Social Democrats (ČSSD). It is the lowest national vote for ODS since the party's foundation in 1991 and puts the Social Democrats on a level of national support they had in 1995-6, although - as noted - they did experience a more catastrophic electoral meltdown in the 2004 European elections and bounced effortlessly back in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

Previously, however, when one big party declined the other picked up support - with the exception that is of the Opposition Agreement period (1998-2002) when the they co-operated politically as a part of a confidence and supply agreement to enable a minority Social Democrat government. In that period, however, existing parties (the Communists and a Christian-Democrat led centrist alliance) gained from voter discontent - or, at least, vote desire to vote against incumbents. As the lastest analysis at Pozorblog makes clear (see graph) the swing in support for new parties is unprecedented in Czech terms and pretty damn big in regional terms.

The 2010 result is still more striking because the fragmentation - and equalization - of the Czech party politics it has brought about - again Kevin Deegan-Krause has done the numbers over at Pozorblog - follows on an election result in 2006, which saw polarization and an large increas in support for both big parties. Indeed, in 2006 ODS polled a record vote. Such polarization seemed to be part of a CEE-wide trend at the time, but may now have been derailed.

Does this herald a cycle of ever more unstable party politics with new parties rising and falling with increased tempo and scale, as the stable-seeming party systems of CEE such as Hungary, the Czech Republic and (who knows) even dear old Slovenia defaulting to 'normal' postcommunist politics under the exogenous shocks of the economic crisis and/or because finally voters have got truly fed up with them and a perfect storm of mismanaged strategy and credible new parties has blown up and blown them away. Kevin Deegan Krause suggests this and it's seductive and plausible argument.

On the other hand if organization and 'standard' predictable identity have tended over the long term to bring success, then in years to come they should tend do so again, especially once the lustre of anti-establishment newness wears off TOP09 and Public Affairs (as it very rapidly will when they enter government) and their lack of organizational (and in VV's case) programmatic resources is laid bare. So there may be no automatic or quick spiral into cycle of parties rising and falling. 'Old' and 'new' parties - and here I am really thinking really of parties of the centre-right - ODS, TOP09, VV and Christian Democrats - are likely to be engaged in projects of realignment, likely to produce some Italian style alliance or bloc probably centred on ODS.

Moreover, however fickle the voters - and I think that with the exception of some parts of the ODS electorate and small loyal core electorates of Communists and Christian Democrats, they have always been pretty fickle bunch - there is a limited reservoir of politicians, journalists, businesspeople and aristocrats with the experience, credibility and financial backing to launch a credible new party projects. They are not that easy to do. As that "one of the reasons that new parties do not survive is that they never really get started".

'New' parties tend to work when they are breakaways from old parties - or recycled versions of earlier elites - with an aura of newness. Leaving aide the iconic Schwarzenberg, TOP09 seems run by hardened ex-Christian Democrats with a long political track record. What is TOP09 without the Prince? Public Affairs seems to form something of a fascinating exception here, but even here if you look closely you see that it has recycled part of many of the CR's small off-the-radar liberal parties. The issue therefore seems to be just as the organizational stability and elite cohesion of existing parties in preventing breakaway projects and the ability of extraparliamentary politicians to bring together, mobilize and unite diffuse elements, than the voters ever changing moods.

One critical point, may be the ability or inability of new parties to take control of the regions - currently all run by Social Democrats with the exception of Prague. The battle for political control of the Czech capital in municipal elections in November will be an intresting test of whether TOP and VV can consolidate- although both are strong in the capital it will be a relatively easy initial test.

2. A victory for the centre-right, but a difficult to manage coalition

Viewed in left-right terms for the first time since 1992 - well, in fact 1998 although in that year the Freedon Union's leaders never for a moment allying with the ODS, having just broken away from it - this year's election result break the deadlock between left and right. Coalition talks are have just started to form a ODS-TOP09-Public Affairs (VV) coalition, which, on paper, would enjoy a thumping majority (118 of 200 seats). However, the fly the in ointment is VV, whose origins, leaders and financial backing are uncertain and whose politics are as much anti-establishment and populist as right-wing,liberal and pro-market: the demand to cut the military budget and spend the money on schools seems characteristic. If VV is included ina coalition, the calculation at the back of ODS and TOP politicans is probably that even if VV's parliamentary group splits - and the track record of loose, charistmatically led new parties which experience a meteoric rise would seem to make that a racing certainty - enough of its 24 strong group of deputies will gravitate to ODS or TOP09 to leave the government with a working majority.

Still, given that the emerging Nečas government will need to make some tough financial decisions - and will be programmatic committed to doing - there are likely acute problems of party and coalition management, especially as TOP09 is itself a hastily put together conglomeration of ex-Christian Democrats, the odd ex-ODS politician and independent local politicians: seasoned with the odd businessman and emininent physian the latter group, especially, may have little experience of - or taste for - party discipline in parliament.

3. Instabilty, infighting and realignment on the centre-right

The upshot of all - even if you subscribe to the somewhat conspiratorial view of Erik Best's the Final Word - that TOP09 and VV are, in essence, fake parties intended to soak up protest voting and then fold (into ODS) and will not change the status quo where powerful vested interests dominate - is that there will be some major realignment on the right. This, as I suggest above, will be part organizational, but also part ideological: if there is some degree of consolidation a 'Canadian scenario' would seem most probably with the insurgent anti-corruption, market populist agenda of TOP09 and VV absorbed into the mainstream, most probably represented some kind of remade ODS.

4. The rise of left-wing populist challenge to the Communists and Social Democrats

The Social Democrats, despite the shock of defeat, are in many ways in somewhat less of a crisis than ODS. True the robust confrontation welfare populism and negative campaigning of Paroubek era may be dumped - although, in fact, negative campaigning of the right against the lack of realism of Paroubek's Social Democrats may have done the job in persuading many of their voters not to turn out - and a turn back to some quieter more moderate version of Czech social democracy is likely. However, that's a cycle we've seen before with the shift from the bombastic Zeman to the technocratic Špidla to the even more bombastic Paroubek (leaving out the ill-fated, brief premiership of Stanislav Gross in 2004-5). The Social Democrats will also benefit from not being in government - and hence free to oppose unpopular cuts, and regroup and rethink - and are more experienced in bouncing back from bruising electoral setbacks and political meltdowns.

The unexpectedly good performance of two, little fancied minor left-wing parties: Zeman's SPOZ and the Sovereignty party should give them food for though. Zeman's party was regarded as something of joke and/or vanity project, having little more than Zeman himself, a bog standard centre-left programme with few new idea (rehashing ideas the Social Democrats have regularly used) and surprisingly large amounts of cash for national billboard advertising. Some wonder whether it was not a Russian style spoiler party deliberatly backed by interests favouring the right. If so, it succeeded brilliantly.

The somewhat less successful Sovereignty is, however, probably the one to watch and seems to be in for the longer term (Zeman has quit his own party): it has a more innovative blend of centre-left economics, anti-establishment rhetoric and a dosh of euroscepticism and in Jan Bobošiková - striking in trademark bright yellow dress - a striking figure with the cache of newness. Interestingly, Sovereignty and SPOZ seem to have picked up votes in quite different regions (see below) suggesting that scope for some more ambitious project - a Public Affairs (VV) of the left, if you will.


It has also not escaped attention that despite its Prague stronghold (its origins lie in local politics in the Czech capital) VV seems to have picked up more than a few left-wing voters - doing surprisingly well in the industrial Moravia-Silesia region in the North-West of the country.



The Mother of All Questions for the Czech left, however, is what will happen the Communist Party (KSČM) and its famously loyal voters? TOP09 was able to fell Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL)- another party with a loyal core electorate, but limited wider appeal. but only, arguably, because TOP was founded by ex-Christian Democrats and because part of the KDU electorate was a more floating and centrist one. Would parties of the populist left be able to do a similar job on KSČM? The Czech Communists are bigger with a bigger core electorate and its seems unlikely that there is a Czech Robert Fico concealed somewhere inside the party reading to launch a Czech Smer? The Czech Social Democrats and their voters would, however, seems to offer more than sufficient scope for a small-medium size new social-national party of the populist left.

Czech elections: How I got it wrong (again) - and why

The Czech election have happened and as soon as the exit polls came in, it was clear something pretty unusual had happened. When the results came in the Social Democrats 'had won', but both big parties' score were way down on what had been predicted on unexpected and pretty much historic lows: the Social Democrats on 22.1%, the Civic Democrats on 20.2%. The big winners were the two new reformist centre-right parties TOP09 on 16.7% and Public Affairs (VV) on 10.9 who came close to pushing the Communists (KSČM) into fifth. In the end, however, KSČM - the only sure thing in Czech politics these days - pulled in 11.27%, a bad (-1.5%) but not a disasterous result. It was a bad election for small parliamentary parties: the Greens as widely expected were wiped out and - as also anticipated, but much more momentously- the Christian Democrats also fell below the 5% threshold and are out of parliament for the first time since 1990 and - in wider historical perspective taking into account the communist period (when they were a satellite party) and the pre-communist period - perhaps more than century.

Small left-wing parliamentary parties - the Citizens Rights Party - Zemanites of ... can you guess? .... former Social Democratic PM Miloš Zeman and the Sovereignty bloc of former news presenter Jana Bobošiková - neither of which were given much of chance before the election, both polled unexpectedly well: 4.33% and 3.67% - enough for annual state funding - although this wasn't enough for the mecurial Zeman who promptly resigned as leader of his own personal party. He was shortly joined by Christian Democrat Cyril Svoboda and Jiří Paroubek, who led the Social Democrats for the first time in ages to a worse-than-expected parliamentary election results - although without quite hitting the 8% managed by Vladimír Špidla in the 2004 European elections.

And, if I was head of the Czech Politics Pundits Party, I too would resign, because as you will gather, I was badly wrong in my forecast (again). However, mistakes can be instructive, so let' go over how I got it wrong. I predicted

Social Democrats 27%

Civic Democrats 23%
Communists 13.5 - 14.0%
TOP09 12%
VV 8%
Christian Democrats 6%

My first main mistake was to assume - perhaps thinking of how British voters behaved earlier this month - was that new parties support would be less than that in the polls and that established parties somewhat greater. My assumption was that new parties new found popularity was fairly flakey and that some of their supporters either wouldn't turn out to vote or would make a better-the-devil-you-know choice at the polls and opt in the end for an established parties. So Mistake No 1. was to underestimate the frustration of Czech voters and to overestimate the underlying appeal of established parties. A very West European error.

This led to two smaller errors: Mistake No. 2 was to overestimate the core electorate of historic parties such as the Communists - who lost votes in both relative and absolute terms - and the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL), who did indeed fall below the 5% threshold. Interestingly, the gambler in me got this one right - I staked 10 euros on them crashing our of parliament winning have a princely four - while the more cautious blogging political scientist didn't. Mistake No. 3 was to discount the prospects of small left-wing parties, despite the fact that polls showed at least one (SPOZ) creeping up in the polls to 3-4 per cent.

Overall, I show (as ever) a lack of political imagination - or an engrained sense of disbelief - about likely changes. Borrowing from the trends picked Kevin Deegan-Krause's poll analysis, I at least see that both main parties are not going to suffer a dip in support, but what I failed to see is that far from rowing back from these trends being , in the actual results conistent of these trends writ very, very large indeed. A bit of imagination and the Deegan Krause analysis and you could have been there.

Regional poll suggests Czech Christian Democrats face electoral oblivion

Lidovci příliš nezáří ani na jihu Moravy - ve své tradiční baště reports ČT24, the Czech CNN (as if). Translated this means that the Czech Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) are - according to regional polling - down to a grim six percent even in their historic bastion of South Moravia. They polled 11% of the vote there in 2006 election but nationally only just made it over the 5% threshold, this poll suggests their electoral support may be halved and, come parliamentary elections at the end of next month, they will go the way of the Hungarian KNDP and other small Christian parties in CEE - down the electoral plughole. With mass organization, tradition and some deeply embedded support in Catholic regions, they couldn't totally be written off even as an extra-parliamentary party, but like the KNDP in the end they will end up simply as a building bloc for other alliance. Bad news for the Czech right in the short-term: if KDU-ČSL flops so do their slim chances of a parliamentary majority, but their demise would exactly not great news for the Social Democrats either, wiping from the political map a moderate, stable, pro-European grouping with a genuine commitment to a social market, leaving them more reliant than they might like to be. The culprits are, of course, the new TOP09 party headed up by Habel confidante Prince Karel Schwarzenberg and various, pragmatic pro-market Christian Democrat defectors such as Miroslav Kalousek. In the end, they might I guess find their way into the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) creating a broader based right - TOP09 is almost unashamedly openly a short-term vehicle and ODS current stand-in leader Petr Nečas is a practicing Catholic who can do social conservatism. If, of course, ODS does not desend into factional conflict there is a Civic Democatic Party left for them to make their way into. I suppose they will just have to wait for Václav Klaus to descend from the heavens (or at least the battlements of Prague Castle) and save them.

UK Tories to send gay MP to quell Polish social conservatives

Conservative party to send gay MP to quell EU extremists reports The Guardian. The story? Nick Herbert, Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs, Tory spokesperson for the environment and one of several openly gay Conservative MPs has drawn the short straw and has agreed to go to Poland to attend a gay pride event in Warsaw in July (so far, so straightfoward) and also held the Tories' highly socially conservative ally, Law and Justice (PiS) embark on a 'journey' to modernize its negative views on homosexuality. Possibly a tall order. One of the founders of the PiS, Poland's late President Lech Kaczynski banned such events when mayor of the Polish capital. You have to feel sorry for Mr Herbert. He seems a nice guy. He met my mum when canvassing and was quite charming when she told he she was a dyed-in-the-wool social democrat, would like Gordon Brown as PM and a would not vote conservative if her life depended on it. I wonder if he will get on as well with Catholic social conservative in Warsaw as social democrats in Mid-Sussex.

Czech politics: How to be a successful loser

Karel Schwarzenberg tells Slovakia's Sme that he doesn't plan on leading his TOP09 party to victory in the forthcoming Czech parliamentary elections SME.sk | Schwarzenberg: Nechceme vyhrať voľby.

Which is frankly just as well, as with 10-15% per cent preferences - now stagnating towards the lower end of that range as the novelty of his party wears thin and it becomes so last year (the clue is perhaps in the name) - the only role this rather interesting aristo-anti-politician is really likely to play is to a support party (and catalyst for change?) to the battered Civic Democrats.

Traces of nuts may be detectable

The mildy controversial article Tim Bale, Aleks Szczerbiak and I wrote for Political Quarterly about the British Tories and their East European allies in the new European Conseravtives and Reformers Group (ECR) European Parliament has just appeared - interested readers based in universities with an institutional subscription to PQ might like to click through here. Otherwise, friends and colleagues, please feel free to drop me an email to ask for an electronic offprint.

The new ECR group, however, looks a bit more shaky than it might have done a few months ago, if the recent interview with Civic Democrat faction leader in the EP Miroslav Ouzký, who pulls no punches in telling Czech news magazine Respekt that the leaving the European People's Party was a bad move, depriving his party of political clout and was the brainchild of arch-eurosceptic and one time Klaus protege, Jan Zahradil (now the Vice-Chair of ECR). The ECR's dependence on small one MEP parties, Ouzký says - as we too argued in the article (seealso an East European oriented presentation I did on the subject last year fwith some figures) leaves it vulnerable to collapse.

My co-author, Tim Bale, is also author of new book on the British Tories, which he describes here in a podcast on the Bookhugger site. I had a small enabling role here, as it was recording in my office: a fact obvious by default for anyone who knows it in that Tim is seated in front of the only area not cluttered with untidy piles of books, papers and coffee cups: the space-age window-cum-porthole which sometimes leaves me feeling more like Major Tom than Dr Sean.

Conservatively speaking

The paper on Czech conservatism in Liblice has now appeared in a conference paper archive on the website of the Henrich Boell Foundation, who jointly sponsored the event with the Institute for Contemporary History in Prague. There are also some much better and more interesting papers alongside.

What I wonder would the English Greens call their foundation - if, of course, they had the cash and the votes to create one, of course?

Update: The broken hyperlink the papers originally posted has now been fixed.

Fractured alliance

Tim Bale's brief on the Parliamentary Affairs website trails some of the arguments and analysis about the new European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament that Tim, Aleks Szczerbiak and I have been working on.

The Czech right: culture, folk roots and a bit of fusion

Public engagement is flavour of the month just now, so when asked out of the ether to contribute something about Czech politics to the launch issue of cultural-political monthly intended to fill the gap left by the winding up of the long-established Czech intelligenstia Literární noviny I agreed. The venture is, rather unusually, being undertaken by a newly formed cultural and publishing co-operative (an institutional form rarely seen in the CR outside the housing sector)

Clearly, I should have asked for some CDs in payment as well as a small donation to charity because, as I later discovered, the moving spirit behind the project who contacted me, Jiří Plocek is a musician and sometime member of famed folk/jazz/bluegrass fusionists Teagrass. Still, readers who you want to improve their reading experience might want to click in to one of the group's performances with Hungarian singer Irén Lovász here

The topic they asked me to write on, framed in an interestingly Czech terms (since when did anyone in the UK care about the authenticty of anything? ) was:

"Is there an authentic political right in the Czech Republic?

When observers question the authenticity of the right in the Czech Republic, they generally have one three things in mind: 1) that the Czech right’s largely pro-market orientation makes it an alien import ill suited to Czechs’ Central European traditions; 2) that on a European level the Czech right is an isolated and odd phenomenon with few real partners beyond the British Tories; or 3) that right-wing parties and ideologies in the Czech Republic have, wittingly or unwittingly, been little more than a cover for corrupt and self-interested networks of politicians, businesspeople and officials. All three contain elements of truth but also strong elements of caricature.

The emergence of strong liberal-conservative right wing in the Czech Republic after was one of the early political surprises in post-communist Central Europe. Many observers assumed that Czechoslovak politics would be shaped the country’s ‘social democratic tradition’ or cultural and geographical proximity to the social market economies of Austria and Germany. A Czech centre-right, if it emerged at all, was expected to be Christian Democrat in outlook. The rise of Václav Klaus in 1990-1 backed by a coalition of Civic Forum anti-communist grassroots activists and the formation of ODS quickly put paid to such illusions – as did the early electoral marginalization of KDU-ČSL.

However, that the civic right that coalesced around Klaus did have social and intellectual roots extending back the normalization period and back to 1960s followed: the penetration of Western neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideas into Czechoslovakia during the brief window opened by the Prague Spring; the discrediting of the once strong Czech democratic-socialist tradition after the 1968 invasion; the frustration of a generation of well educated people stifled by the rigidity of the Husák regime; the isolation of dissent from the bulk of Czech society; the parallel formation of ‘grey zone’ of technocrats including Klaus and other liberal economists, who were left by the regime with little to do but read and bide their time. In hindsight, it is clear such phenomena set the scene for the emergence of a powerful civic right in early 1990s.

However, the Czech right arguably has some deeper historical roots. Despite an Anglo-Saxon Thatcherite veneer in many ways ODS was more national-liberal Contemporary Czech right-wing eurosceptic concerns with ‘national interests’ or the Czech place in an emerging federal Europe would have been immediately recognisable in Czech political debates 90 or 100 years ago. Viewed in this perspective, the unlikely phenomenon of ‘Czech Thatcherism’ is simply the latest assertion of a liberal Czech national identity in a region dominated by Austro-German traditions of corporatism and state paternalism.

Such independence can, however, breed isolation. While KDU-ČSL seamlessly integrated into broader West European family of Christian Democratic parties, Czech right-wing commentators have often agonized about whether ODS is in European terms truly a ‘standard’ authentic party. This issue has been starkly illustrated by formation in the European Parliament by ODS and the UK Tories of the new European Conservatives and Reformers group (ECR). While the Tories and ODS are well matched in their enthusiasm for free markets and dislike of the Lisbon Treaty, the remainder of the ECR is an uncomfortable mix of Latvian and Polish nationalists, Belgian populists and Dutch Christian fundamentalists. Such concerns about the inauthenticity of Czech right are, however, probably misplaced. Right-wing forces across Europe form an uneven patchwork of beliefs and traditions that defies easy categorisation. The Civic Democrats’ political pas de deux with the British Tories and lack of other major European allies suggest political weakness, not political abnormality.

A more lingering doubt is raised by the relationship between business and politics on the Czech right and the suspicion that right-wing parties’ ideological commitment to competition with the left is in reality skin deep and always set aside when money, power or political office are at stake. For many the sight of Miroslav Topolánek and other leading right-wing politicians sunning themselves on an Italian yacht in the company of a ČEZ lobbyist and a leading member of ČSSD graphically illustrated this. Those with longer memories may recall how cut throat electoral ODS- ČSSD competition in 1998 was succeeded by the Opposition Agreement, or how Václav Klaus successfully sought the support of Communist deputies in his bid to become President in 2003.

However, although shot through with an unedifying sleaze and graft – and an often brutal, pragmatism - in many respects Czech party politics is a highly conventional contest of left and right. As much political scientist have found Czech right-wing politicians and voters consistent and clear of ideological pro-market views and – quite often, at least – vote and act accordingly. The Czech right is also consistent in its social and electoral constituency: a distinct younger, better educated, better off urban electorate worked disproportionately in the private sector and tending to live in Bohemia rather than Moravia. Such a base has proved too narrow to deliver the right convincing parliamentary majorities, but is a common profile for conservative parties inclining towards market liberalism across Europe.

Over the past decade, political deadlock between left and right has repeatedly forced the Czech Republic’s major political parties of right and left, against their own inclinations, into ad hoc political co-operation. The current Fischer government is simply the latest instalment in this pattern. Pragmatic deal making or overarching left-right co-operation pacts such as the Opposition Agreement do not, however, make Czech parties of the right less authentically right-wing (or parties of the left less authentically left-wing). Indeed, co-operation across ideological and party divides has been a recognisable pattern in many European democracies, including interwar Czechoslovakia, and has often been a successful model for national development.

Taken together, this suggests that two decades after the fall of communism the Czech Republic does indeed possess a distinct and authentic right-wing rooted in the country’s culture, history and society. Authenticity is, however, in itself not a lodestone for good politics, effective government or political success. Indeed for critics of the Czech right such as Jiří Pehe the problem is precisely that it draws all too authentically on nationalistic and provincial reflexes of Czech society. Such judgements are probably too harsh, understating the liberal and modernizing impulses that have animated Czech right-wing politics.

One thing, however, does seem certain. When Czechs look their country’s right-wing they will, to some extent, see themselves reflected back. Whether that is a pleasant sight is, of course, a matter that they themselves must decide."

Update: The free launch issue of Kulturní noviny did indeed appear and can downloaded in PDF format here

TOP cats

Want to know the name of the man who will determine the future direction of Czech politics? I'll tell you. It's His Serene Highness Prince Karl Johannes Nepomuk Josef Norbert Friedrich Antonius Wratislaw Mena von Schwarzenberg. That's Karel Schwarzenberg to you, me and the Czech elecorate. Mr Schwarzenberg (as I shall call him) is the widely respected and popular Czech independent of aristocratic descent and Swiss-Austrian-Czech background, who is heads the newest party on Czech political scene: TOP09. That might sound like some kind of trade fair but the acronym, in fact, stands for Tradition, Responsibility and Prosperity a slogan vaguely reminiscent of Vichy France, so understandably they are sticking with the corny but safe TOP09.

That lack of class perhaps gives the game away. The party is not really Mr Schwarzenberg's creation, but that of one time Christian Democrat leader and smooth political operator Miroslav Kalousek. Mr Kalousek quit the KDU-ČSL when its scandal hit leader Jiří Čunek finally stepped down to be replaced by older stager and former Foreign Minister, Cyril Svoboda. Mr Svoboda is - at least compared to Mr Čunek - squeakly clean and comes without any of the scandals concerning money in brown envelopes, derailed criminal investigation or populist outbursts about Roma that marked his predecessor inglorious stint at the top of Czech politics. Still, he's not good enough for Mr Kalousek and sundry other heavyweights Christian Democrats because of his obvious inclination to work with the Social Democrats. Kalousek et al are rather more market-oriented and much prefer the right: Mr K was the driving force being some pretty detailed and well thought ideas in the Christian Democrats' 2006 election programme, although he did rather blot his copybook but suddenly deciding that he would break the political impasse after the election by entering a coalition with... the Social Democrats with the tacit parliamentary support of.... the Communists. Kalousek was ousted by an internal rebellion for his pains.

Not the best recommendation for the leader of new centre-right party. Enter Mr Schwarzenberg. Having managed the family estates and supported Czech dissidents in exemplory fashion under communism, served as an advisor to Václav Havel and been elected to the Czech Senate as independent in 2004, Mr S. was propelled into top rank politics when the Greens screwed huge concessions from the Civic Democrats in 2007 to claim the post of Foreign Minister and then played a trump card by choosing the experienced, capable and mutli-lingual Schwarzenberg as Czech Foreign Minister. By all accounts, he did a decent job batting on a very sticky wicket as the Czech EU Presidency - and ultimately the government - slowly fell apart.

Now, however, he has, as he himself observed, staked all his political capital on one spin of the political wheel. TOP09 has a bland but broadly right-of-centre programme, which all about clean and straightfoward politics and getting things done and balancing market forces and social resposibility. And, of course, it's Europhile and Atlanticist. Anyone with a long enough memory will be distinctly reminded of the programme of the now defunct Freedom Union, which broke away from ODS with much hullabaloo in 2008. The early indications for TOP09 - despite being well financed (14 million crowns in donations from businesspeople and wealthy supporters - one of 11 million), having linked up with movement of local independent mayors and, at last, got a new party logo - look less promising. The party has recorded poll preferences of 2% and 3.5%, which suggest a less than stunning entry onto the Czech political stage (if any) in October's early elections.

On the other hand, the party might just be poised for a late and effective pre-election surge: the Freedom Union, you will remember peaked too early in the polls before the 1998 elections and never really recovered. Perhaps TOP09 will match the Czech Greens' rather better timed picking up of momentum in 2006. And, of course, in Mr Schwarzenberg they've got a fascinating political figure. And, you will remember, exiled aristos turned political independents do have a certain political track record in the region. Bulgaria's exiled king Simeon II stormed to political success and turned the Bulgarian party system upside down in 2001 (his former bodyguard's party GERB has now just repeated the trick) and, more recently, the Hungarian Democratic Forum saved itself from political death by fielding Prince George Habsburg, grandson of Hungary's last king and former head of the Hungarian Red Cross, as the number 2 on its European elections list last June.

This seems reflects a rather interesting mix of anti-political perception of remnants of Central European aristocracy as special breed of charismatic and cultured technocrats, who can step down into the grim and graft of the political arena, work a little stardust and provide honest and non-partisan solutions no-one else could manage: their education and polish, so it is said, makes them confident movers and shakers, their cosmopolitan background chimes with ideals of an integrated and united Europe, and their long-settled family wealth makes them impervious to the blandishments of corruptin - after all, why take a bribs when you own large chunks of Switzterland.

I'm not sure if I entirely like this buy this argument, which seems to be just a snobbish veneer applied to what is really an form of anti-political populism. For my money Mr Svoboda was just as a good a Foreign Minister as Mr Schwarzenberg. But it's certainly true that Mr Schwarzenberg and TOP09 - if they can somehow gain the Czech equivalent of Big Mo over the summer - may be the last best hope for the Czech centre-right. On most other scenario, no matter how well the Civic Democrats do - and they are currently ahead in the polls - they will as in 2006 have no allies strong enough to build a parliamentary majority. And that leaves us looking at either a minority Social Democrat(-led) government helped into power by the Communists, or some kind of ill tempered Grand Coalition between Civic and Social Democrats.

Czech government falls: Is the curtain also slowly falling for the right?

It was one of those theatrical, but drawn and deadly boring Czech parliamentary occasions - yet another attempt to vote out the Czech Republic's minority centre-right government, albeit spiced up by the promise of three dissident deputies from the ruling Civic Democratic Party to vote the government out. I quickly got bored - the government had narrowly survived four such votes of no confidence as patronage and dissident legislators' reluctance to pull the trigger and bring the curtain down on their own parliamentary careers. I busied myself with the rather more stimulating topic of calculating effective national electoral thresholds and checked the result later that evening.

And, lo and behold, the government actually fell, sunk by the combined votes of side-lined flat tax guru Vlastimil Tlustý and two deputies expelled from ever fractious Green Party, whose inclinations (if we set aside personal animus) were more to the left. Despite - or perhaps because of - a rich tradition of minority government, it's the first time a Czech government has been unseated by a vote of confidence since 1989 and, if I'm not mistaken, ever in modern Czech history.

What do we expect now? Well for the duration of the Czech EU Presidency and the summer holidays, probably not a lot. The Topolánek government will limp on as a caretaker government, until early elections in autumn or conceivably summer (perhaps to coincide with Euro-elections scheduled for 4-5 June), no doubt accompanied a lot of wrangling with the opposition Social Democrats, who will seek to exercise some influence by trying to insist on a ministerial reshuffle to get rid of some particular betes noires.

If the polls and the results of last year's regional elections are any guide, the Social Democrats will then sweep back to power and establish some reasonably stable government - possibly including the Christian Democrats, possibly not - but I dare say with the tacit support of the Communists (who might perhaps get to nominate a few independent ministers for their trouble).

And what does it all mean in the longer term when one strips away the War of the Newts style day-to-day politicking? First, it is clear that the fall of the Topolánek government has its roots in split on the right. Second, although the spectacle of deputies in the once well disciplined Civic Democratic parliamentary group breaking away and turning against their own party (more usually a speciality of the Social Democrats) is something of a first, is actually the second time that a minority Civic Democrat-led government has collapsed because of divisions within the right, the first occasion being the unveiling of the party funding scandal and subsequent 'Sarajevo assassination' of Václav Klaus by some of his own ministers in November-December 1997. Third the underlying causes are similar: to what extent should the right seek to push a market-oriented reform agenda and to what extent should it refashion its programme around a compromise with social, ecological and civil society building inclinations of various parts of the political centre.

The roots of what happened today can be found in the Pyrrhic victory of the 2006 election when the once enormous poll leads of the right evaporated under a Social Democrat orchestrated by Jiří Paroubek, which showed that too many Czechs had too many doubts about the radical agenda of flat taxes and market-led welfare and health reform that the Civic Democrats had signed up to as ideologically acceptable alternative to the stale euroscepticism of the late Klaus period. Miroslav Topolánek seems belated to have found his way towards a more pragmatic less eurosceptic Scandinavian style conservatism better attuned to Czech realia and in seeing of the rather vapid and flashy challenger of Prague mayor Pavel Bém at last December's ODS congress to have clearly taken the majority of his party with him. But for all his undoubted guile, skill and survivabilty - and probably through some individual legislator's miscalculation - his luck has now run own and his period as ODS leader may quite possibly be coming to an end.

Whoever takes over at the head of ODS, the current global crisis means that market liberalism of the kind that ODS has had as its ideological hallmark since its foundation is out of fashion. The Social Democrats can move into the Euro elections and parliamentary elections with a reasonably plausible narrative of pro-EU politics, strong welfare and energetic state intervention as the pillars of anti-crisis package to look after a fearful population. The right will have little to offer except the memory of unrealised Blue Chance reform package, some unpopular charges for health services and a reasonably handled EU Presidency. I guess that does leave a national-populist card to play and I suppose we will in some form see the Charge of the Klaus Brigade (few tears being shed at Prague Castle tonight, I expect), but whatever happens it's hard to escape the feeling that the influence of the Czech (neo-)liberal right may be starting slowly to slip away.

Cloudy blue

Kevin Degan-Krause's Pozorblog highlights the joys of Wordle, a site which will artily mash will any text as a arty looking 'word cloud' and, as it homes in on key words, tell you straight out and direct what the book is really about. Fed into the site the text of my book The New Right in the New Europe comes out pretty much as you might expect, although my tendency to overuse the word 'however' is rather brutally exposed.

However, I think you can probably forgive me that...

Topolánek: Kant go on like this

Czech PM Miroslav Topolánek kicks off the congress of the ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the most crucial in years. He's a competent, but not very inspiring speaker. The speech itself is no masterpiece, but when read off is effective, clear and to the point. The party's meeting on the outskirts of Prague is symbolic of its marginalization in Czech politics (echoes of the Communist Party's last Central Committee meeting in November 1989 before the regime's collapse?). The party needs to find a strategy not for just election victory, but to create a sustainable Czech right-wing in the long term. It meeds to discuss the reasons for its thumping defeat in regional and Senate elections in an open, but civilized way. The debate should be between those who want to stay in ODS, not those who are planning to leave. Anyone who doesn't like the realities can leave - if, as expected, he retains his leadership of the party, some probably will.

There's also some vapid stuff about Christian values, including a quite from Kant (has Topol been reading the seer of Koenigsburg? or do I detect a speechwriter at work?) suggesting that Topolánek may be inclining to some revamp of the idea - in circulation since the mid-1990s - of making ODS a sort of centrist secular Christian Democratic party. This impression is reinforced by the call for 'balance' - classic trope in Czech political discourse - between realism and idealism, liberalism and conservatism, 'heart and head'. A very similar slogan (rozum a srdce) was used under Klaus in 1998, but Topolánek's stress on listening to what Czech citizens really want (i.e. not a triple helping of market forces and euroscepticism) suggests he see the need for the former, rational pragmatism, not the stoking of the ideological passions Václav Klaus wants to keep burning.

Anyone who doesn't fancy tough choices and a difficult path, Topolánek concludes, can go elsewhere. One man who has sort of followed this advice is indeed VK.The Czech President, contrary to reports, will be turning up at the congress, gives a speech tomorrow morning. Expect something subtly poisonous and, who knows, a call for a new party?

Who killed Czech politics?

Czech President Václav Klaus weights in with a what-does-it-all-mean-all mean-for-us interpretation of the farcical 'scandal' in the CR's governing centre-right Civic Democrat Party (ODS), which saw Prime Minister Topolánek's rival Vlastimil Tlustý commission some 'compromising' photos of himself in order to catch Topolánek out. (Unfortunately, only a very minor ODS deputy, Jan Morava, snapped at the bait, although the opposition claims - with no real evidence - that he was working at Topolánek's behest). Tlustý and his small band of supporters are currently waging (and losing) a destructive faction fight with Topolánek in ODS, although at least one pro-Topolánek deputy has resigned the ODS parliamentary whip and, given the government's wafer thin parliamentary majority, we can look forward to nail biting votes of no confidence after the November regional and Senate elections have given a clearer indication of the Czech political weather.

So, what does it all mean? Klaus claims it shows that Czech politics has been emptied of real ideological content and, we are given to understand, descended into a crude and dirty struggle for power. Topolánek retorts that, if Czech politics, lacks content it is a legacy of the powersharing 'Opposition Agreement' deal Klaus himself negotiated with the centre-left in late 1990s to run a minority government. He (Topolánek) was barely able to stomach it, apparantly, but (surprise, surprise) kept stumm at the time, despite a leaked, disparing text message Klaus wrote about him after his suprise election as ODS leader in 2002. Tlustý, one of the few ex-Communist Party members left in a senior position in ODS (although like millions of other Czechs he was simply an opportunistic/pragmatic Party card holder, I should add) is, Topolánek say, is typical, cynical product of the Opposition Agreement era.

Although being a little precious - Czech politics has had its seamy side pretty much since the fall of the communism in November1989 - both PM and President are, I think, right and wrong at the same time. Tlustý had previously identified himself as standard bearer of those in ODS disillusioned with the compromises the party made after 2006 to hold power, especially the dilution of its radical flat-tax agenda it developed in opposition. As well as posing for mocked-up photos with blondes in swimming pools, he has a lot of techncial background on fiscal and tax issues. Regardless of Tlustý's sincerity, there is clearly an ideological debate rumbling about the direction of the Czech under the surface. Unsurprisingly, neither PM nor President really want to acknowledge that.

Klaus is right, however, in seeing Topolánek as taking ODS in a more flexible, pragmatic direction, filtering its ideological agenda of liberal market reform - as welll as umpteen dodgy sectional and personal interests - through the realities of Czech politics and Czech society and coming up with a political programme and strategy defined by the need to keep the Greens/liberal-centrist on board and the deep rooted disinclination of many Czechs for any kind of red-blooded Thatcherism. The art of the possible. The 64,000 crown question is whether without the charisma and ideological hot gospelling of Klaus, he can hold together party and coalition together. The right are doing better in the polls and Green leader and market friendly eco-liberalMartin Bursík has, for the moment, crushed internal opposition , but watch this space.

Bulgarian President pushes for electoral and party reform referendum

The Sofia Echo reports that, having come up with a package of proposed political reforms aimed at introducing some a new of Mixed Member Proportional electoral system and tougher registration requirements for parties, Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov is pushing for a Romanian (New Zealand?) style referendum to enact the proposals, although, unfortunately for him, referenda are not binding on legislators. Post-1989, the Bulgarians have never had a national referendum, however, so who knows what may happen, if the other politicos do accede to his wish.

The President is, of course, also consulting with party leaders and reportedly won the support of the Socialist Party (BSP), his former political home, but right-wing parties seem rather more leery. The proposals, which specify that to be legally registered parties must have branches in 2/3 of municipalities, seem directed at culling small, local grouping that have done increasingly well at local level in the last couple of years, prompting allegations of vote buying and other dubious practices. These seem to have been borne out by a series of court decisions annulling municipal elections. Critics suggest, however, that established parties, including big powerful groups like the BSP, have simply been caught napping, letting their grassroots organization wither, as attention shifted to elite-level politics in Sofia and the formulation of party lists central to the current system of PR. Rising political force, GERB, a sort of centre-right populist concoction riding very high in the national polls is, more understandably, also rather short of local organization.

The electoral reform element of sketchy overview of the presidential proposals are expertly dissected by Matthew Shugart at Fruits and Votes. Seems, however, that they are more about corralling powerful local politicians into established (big) parties than eliminating corrupt practices.

And as postscript I should note that a presidentially sponsored Round Table to seek consensus on changing the electoral system and party regulation regime is due to held on 7 July. Watch this space

The long and winding road that leads... to our special issue of Party Politics

After a very long gestation period of some four and half years the special issue of Party Politics on parties of the centre-right in Central and Eastern Europe guest edited by Aleks Szczerbiak and mehas finally appeared. I read through and I was generally pleased with the articles have turned out. The unintendedly long, period of writing, re-writing, talking and meeting - interrupted in my case by the publication of a book and the birth of daughter - clearly benefited it. Maybe all academic articles should take this long to write ...

Slovakia: In a right mess

The woes of Slovakia’s centre-right Christian Democratic parties continue apace. Three deputies of the Christian Democrat Movement (KDH) have quit to found a Conservative Democratic Party (KDS), which, they say, will be more resolutely committed supporting traditional values and targeting financial support to (traditional) families. Meanwhile dissident members of the more liberal Slovak Christian and Democratic Union (SDKÚ) of ex-Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda (itself originally a breakaway from KDH) have been kicked out of the party for allegedly breaking resolutions not to air internal disputes in public. Their platform is a vaguer one of 'generational change' and renewal, outlined in a platform called Time for Change. The key generational change seems to be getting rid of Dzurinda, recently re-elected but seen as an electoral liability. Those expelled include several deputies and important elements of SDKÚ’s Bratislava organisation, where the party is strongest. Who know perhaps they will found a new party too? To complete the picture, we should perhaps add that Slovakia also has a further mainstream centre-right party - the electorally weak, but intellectually more influential Civic Conservative Party (OKS), which has never one parliamententary representation, who espouse a kind of Czech-style neo-con/neo-liberal fusion. The Slovak centre-right is clearly paying the price in opposition for its fragmented structure. This seem to provide cracks along which it fractures in the face of underlying strategic dilemmas: how to manage in a country with an electorate seemingly more inclined to the centre-left than centre-right; and what does being on the Christian Democratic right actually means in Slovak. The Czech right faced a rather similar situation in 2002, but with the crucial difference that the right is basically united in a single party, ODS, and that its long servingbut discredited leader Václav Klaus (finally) decided to step down.

Meanwhile, in the Slovak governing coalition things seem to have got rather jolly again. Vladimír Mečiar even recommends Prime Minister Robert Fico as Slovakia’s next president. Presumably, given the relative weakness of the Slovak presidency, Fico will resist this flattering offer. I suppose the idea of semi-presidential regime might distantly take his fancy, but he does not have the votes to change the constitution.

Blog tracks Czech anti-Islamic 'ultraconservatives'

A Czech political blog, seemingly written by a student of Middle Eastern studies, contains quite a short paper (in Czech) on the activities of the small Young Right (Mladá pravice) grouping, which occupies an odd kind of no man’s land between the Czech far right proper and the fringe of the Czech centre-right proper, especially Václav Klaus’s CEP thinktank, rather cockamammy attempts to fuse ‘anti-Jihadism’and anti-immigrant positions drawn from Western Europe and North America with traditional Czech nationalism at outlined in a previous poste. Leaving aside the rather ponderous attempts at theory building, the paper is quite an interesting read, although I am little galled to find myself described (unreferenced) as an ‘American political scientist’ - despite the vogue for all things 'Czeltic', some Czechs seem automatically to assume that anyone called Seán is American - who thinks the Czech right is as a Central European national-liberal mutuation of Anglo-American models. Clearly, the library of the West Bohemian University haven't forked out for a copy of my book.

Do Slovak and Czech Christian Democrats have a prayer?

The continuing dominance of Robert Fico’s SMER in Slovak politics – ably tracked and analyzed by Kevin Deegan Krause in the excellent Pozorblog – is aggravating an ongoing crisis of the sundry liberal and Christian parties that held sway amid a blaze oneo-liberal welfare and labour reform between 1998 – 2006. The splits and rivalries, seem basically about personal ambitions and rival personalities, but are punctuated by calls for generational renewal (is there a Slovak Barack Obama in the house?) and seem to also have an ideological/politcal subtext centring on one issue: about how to confront the populist/national-populist left, whose poll ratings and (worringly) dislike of NGOs and desire to heavy-handedly regular the press have uncomfortable echos of the dominance once exercised by Vladimír Mečiar and his HZDS (now seemingly relegated to a bit part in Fico’s coalition government).

The core of the Slovak centre-right is notionally Christian Democratic - there two mainly parties using the tag, the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), which has roots in the Christian dissidence before 1989, the more (socially) liberal Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ), formed as something of a personal vehicle for then Prime Mikuláš Dzurinda, although various neo-liberal technocrats seems to have hitched a ride with KDH too. The woes of the various stripes of Slovak Christian Democrats have interesting echoes in the current travails of the Czech Christian Democrats who, squeezed between powerful free market right and social democratic and communist left, have never had the whip hand in government and never been able to integrate liberal forces to broaden their appeal. The closest they came to a breakthough was in the ill-fated Quad-Coalition (4k) project in 1999-2001 when the two big parties of left and right were cosying up to each other. The exit from poilitics of the adroit Josef Lux in 1998 after being diagnosed with leukaemia (he died in 1999) finished KDU's prospects of being as much more than a niche party for Catholics in rural regions and confused centrist voters with nowhere to go. Despite good poll rating the fraught 4K project collapsed and split much like the Slovak Democratic Coalition, which indirectly it and spawned Dzurinda's SDKÚ

There followed faction fighting between more liberal (Bohemian-based) and more conservative (Moravian-based) elements in KDU; consequent frequent changes of leader (none, however, very personally commanding) and the lack of a clear strategy as to what Czech Christian Democrats actually stood for and whether they were of the left, right or centre (a perennial dilemma for small parties in a system with well established large parties) has seen the party's support dwindle to its core electorate leaving it hovering dangerously over the 5% threshold that spells political oblivion.

The directionlessness of the party was gruesomely illustrated by the sudden initiative of then KDU leader Miroslav Kalousek in 2006 to enter a Social Democrat-led minority coalition government with Communist support (it never materialized - he was sacked after an internal revolt) and its turning in desperation to newly elected Christian Democrat Senator and small town mayor Jiří Čunek, whose staggering popularity in the 2006 Senate election stemmed from expelling local Roma with chronic rent arrears from municipal housing in the town centre and re-locating them in the outskirts of town. Rapidly embroiled in corruption allegations stemming from his mayoral term(s) and squeezed out ministerial office (he was Minister of Local Development), but not the KDU leadership Čunek's small town populism has proved inadequate to re-launch his party. As highlighted in other posts the Civic Democrats - behind in the polls to the Czech Social Democrats (who, nevertheless, have not reached Fico-like levels of support) - are effectively marking time to see which of their minor allies, the Greens or the Social Democrats, will implode first and which they might somehow absorb to bolster themselves ideologically and electorally.

Ironically, KDU's long and detailed 2006 election programme, which, rather in the Slovak style, combined neo-liberal fiscal and welfare prescriptions (toned down to suit Czech tastes) as well as the usual social market, family protection, communitarian stuff was widely praised by experts as more realistic and better through through than the Civic Democrats' shot-in-the-dark version of flat tax-led neo-liberal reform.

And generational renewal? Commentators and politicians in CEE are always harping on about this, but it's hard to see quite how newer or younger will necessarily mean better. Such comments are, usually a disguised call for in political renewal or cleaner, better, more liberal government - amen to that, but even though there is no primaries system there is ample scope for new parties to emerge or young technocrats to parachute themselves into organizationally weak, elite-led parties. The Slovak experience suggests that many voters don't want renewal of this kind, but stability. Is the Slovak Barack Obama actually Robert Fico?