Let be AV-ing you

 It's day of the local elections and I'm not voting.

But - UKIP tweeps and others out there concerned about my lack of civic engagement take note -  I am going down the polling station today - to have my say in the UK's referendum on adopting the Alternative Vote electoral system (or not).

The consequences, advantages or disadvantages depending on your point of view and what you think democracy should deliver, are fairly and clearly summed up in a briefing paper by the Political Studies Association.  On my reading, AV is not a big deal, preserving the basic, highly disproportional majoirtarian logic of first-past-the-post and (as far as simulations can tell) excluding smaller parties but boosting the Liberal Democrats.

So, not something you would really want to vote for unless you were a dyed-in-the-wool LibDem; felt reallocating preferences to many voters' second or third choice candidate to generate a diminished 50%+ majority for the winning canidate really was a major democratic improvement ;or are convinced that politically AV will be a first step to further  electoral reform along more proportional lines, or that the Liberal Democrats will  revert to their imagined role of the 1990s and became natural and easy coalition partners for Labour in a 'progressive pact'.

Personally, I'm not, I don't and (on both of the last two counts) I severely doubt it.

So -  after doing some short-term partisan guesswork about what might most damage the cohesion of a coalition government I really don't support - I'll be voting No.

I'm a little surprised to have ended up with this decision - although I repeatedly come back to  - and good citizen that I am (honest) I've tried to tune in to the debate. But the rival campaigns, low profile and mostly confined to the TV and radio studios and internet have, frankly, both been been pretty dire. Both have tended to present AV as if it were a proportional system ('fair votes' for the Yes campaign, a entree to parliament for the BNP for the No side), although both have touched on preference reallocation mechanism, the proposed new system's only truly innovative feature. The Yes campaign argue that it ensures genuine majorities (see rather witty beet v graphic below), the No campaign that preference re-allocation it is complicated, doesn't eliminate tactical voting and can generate equally perverse results. Some invoke Arrow's paradoxes

Interestingly, figures from the Party Labour  - now the most likely recipient of my vote if they had a candidate around to around to vote for -  lined up on both sides of the campaign, but, oddly, have lacked any very distinct or clear message. for or against Those in the desperately worthy Yes campaign repeated the rather tired Fair Votes ,some-reform-better than-none mantras, while those on the more brutal, kick-ass No side have recycled the equally tired pro- first-past-the-post arguments (the best of which centre on the ability to 'kick out the bums')  in ways indistinguishable from those campaign's mainly Tory backers.

Left-wing blogger (and author of a soon to be published UCL PhD on the concept of Chavs) Owen Jones, however, advances a more interesting argument  distinctly of the left opposing AV

 "... because I think it will institutionalise mushy centrist politics. I think that’s exactly the aim of many of its staunchest supporters, because they are ... mushy centrists and want an electoral system most likely to ensure their ideology dominates."

and more concretely because he sees it as faciltating the type of LibDem-Labour alliance that some people are as mentioned, actually, still hoping for and which  this left-wing take on things sees as an important (if never realised) element of the New Labour project.

The obvious objection is that AV would have delivered Tony Blair a bigger landslide in 1997 that FTTP, although I guess it could be argued that a weakened Blairite forces couldn't repeat this trick on the same scale

Here, however, as it often does, my mind veers off to Czech(oslovak) politics and, concretely, to the AV-like electoral system promoted in 1990-1 by President Václav Havel in preference to list PR, which he (rather accurately as it turned out) would empower political parties and produce a core of legislators with little connection with localities (the fabled 'constituency link' as it is called in British debates). However, Havel also favoured it because it felt it would promoted centrist candidates, who would benefit disportionately from second preferences, and prevent ideological polarisation.

He also hoped it would help prevent well organised parties with concentrated support from overcoming divided liberals - the scenario the beer versus coffee poster outlines, although a daft ine for most reasonably developed democracies where pro-beer forces would be consolidated into a  Friends of Beer Party  that would romp home easily under FTPP (perhaps on a public crawl programme).

Like much of what Havel advocated,  his electoral reform project - actually a  form of the Supplementary Vote (asking for first and second preferences only)* - never really stood a chance and was quickly voted down  by the country's emerging parties - although, in a certain, it lives on in the two-round, first-past-the-post system used for the Czech Senate, whose logic loosely parallels the 'instant runover' in SV). 

In the Czech context, Havel was in hindsight was probably right: there are no deep class cleavages  in Czech society and  perhaps because of that the country's ideologically strident but depressingly corrupt parties have continually struggled to generate clear, stable majority of left or right, resulting  centrist politics by default. 

But, as Carsten Schneider's excellent heavy-duty political science book on democratic consolidation argues, what matters most is the democratic fit of electoral system to a particular society. British (or perhaps, anticipating the de facto detachment or independence of the other nations, should I say English society is not the Czech society and perhaps a more polarised politics between loose blocs of left and right is a better fit. 

Perhaps the real issue is not electoral reform - even the kind of elegant mixed system that I might turn out to vote for - but decentralise political power to locally elected bodies and  to loosen up party structures, which seem as closed and narrow as anything Havel feared.

* Note Havel's proposal was technically a mixed system - I guess we might call it  a kind of SV+ - as they also contained a rather elegant proposal for proportional 'top-up' seats for votes in constituencies where combined first and second preferences did help elect winning candidates in individual member constituencies. My old notes suggest that under Havel's proposal fall voter's first and second preferences were simply to be added together (giving everyone a second vote), rather than re-allocating the votes of all except the two leading canidates.

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.

Chronicle of a (party) death foretold

I am not always the most astute of pundits, but as the dust settled a year ago even I could see that the Veci veřejné ('Public Affairs'), the anti-establishment, anti-corruption party that was the surprise package last May's Czech elections would - to borrow Kevin Deegan Krause's phrase - live fast and die young. And, as I write, VV seems to be on its political deathbed, rapidly expiring from an outbreak of splits and scandals, extreme even by local standards, that seems to be the political equivalent of ebola fever  - and may yet carry away the Czech government centre-right coalition  government of Petr Nečas in which VV is a junior partner. Expulsions and splits have seen four of VV's 24 deputies leave the party; its chief sponsor and de facto leader Vít Bárta resign as transport minister; and its two bigger partners demand that Mr Bártaand cronies from the ABL security firm leave the government.

Vít Bárta/ Fotobanka ČTK

The problem? Revelations in the media over recent days, have bluntly confirmed  - with documentary and audio evidence - what most people suspected all along:

1) that, nothingwithstanding claims to a postmodern party of electronic direct democracy run through snazzy electronic referendums of members and sympathisers, Mr Bárta controlled and orchestrated the whole organisation;

2) that he used extremely an extremely basic method of party management to keep leading deputies on board,  of the kind that any City of London banker would recognise: he paid them huge sums of cash;

3) that he   backed VV as a project to foward his Napoleonic business ambition for his security company ABL, rightly recognising that public sector contracts were a lucrative source of cash and required political contacts;

4) that VV was conceived as an essentially local project,aimed at securing influence, indeed control, local councils in two Prague boroughs and was conceived as a kind of insurance policy or plan B, to run in parallel with efforts to gain influence in local organisations of the Civic Democrats;

5) that Mr Bárta is a ruthless operator keen on industrial espionage and subterfuge, including the creation of  'pseduo-competitors' to maintain an illusion of transparency and competiton in tenders, and that he transfered some of these techniques to political activities using his company to track the activities of local politicians in Prague.

Given that Veci veřejné's appeal and origins were one of anti-corruption, transparency and taking on political dinosaurs - its name better translated as Public Interest or Res Publica and it was originally a local community politics initiative in Prague formed in respons to murky ways local municipal housing was being privatised deal - there would seem to be no way back, especially as Mr Bárta, who is clearly a strategic thinker of some skill, was foolish enough to put his strategy down in writing.

 Now the only question would seem to be which way the collapsing structure will fall and how many of its deputies will be recoverable, reliable and usable for the two main parties in centre-right coalition, the Civic Democrats (ODS) and TOP09. This is a totally a forlorn hope. There are some impressively able young er people and political marketers in the VV fold, as well oddballs, ABL cronies and second rank figures well out of their depth (like the party's notional leader and hapless Interior Minister, the former investigative journal Radek John) and for a working majority the other two parties would need about 10-12 ex-Večkaři.

From a more nerdish political science point of view it seems a shame that this most unusual and interesting political phenomenon - closer to the 'pocket parties' created by businesspeople in the Baltic state or (it now seems) the phoney virtual parties of the former Soviet Union - is soon to be no more, although its death may be drawn out, mucky and unedifying. Perhaps most telling is that far from being corrupted and eaten into by holding power, the whole project was tainted and corrupt from the start, subverting the political appeal of anti-corruption and anti-establishment  politics to perpetuate and develop the very phenomena it was fighting against. Perhaps I shouldn't be too worried, however, as other will no doubt be trying out and improving upon Mr Bárta's business model in the choppy electoral markets of Czech politics.

Space for the Czech far right, if I'm not far wrong

A few weeks before the Czech elections earlier this year, I was asked if I wanted to write a briefing on the electoral prospects of the Czech far-right - given the economic crisis, a risk consultancy  analyst wondered, they might (as in Hungary) be expected to make advances. 'Fat chance', I said, 'the Czech far right has been dead for more than a decade'. And, for once, my  prediction was right. While the liberal anti-corruption part Public Affairs did surge unexpectedly into parliament, the far-right was nowhere with somewhat over one per cent of the vote, all told. True, the recently banned and quickly re-reformed Workers' Party (DS), whose paramilitary style street parades and confrontations with Roma - and connections with  organized racist violence -  have attracted much local and international publicity did manage the best Czech far-right result in parliamentary elections for more than a decade and does seem to have pockets of support among. young people in technical colleges, school mock elections suggested.

But 1.14 per cent is hardly the stuff of headlines and pales into insignificance with the hundreds of thousands of votes the late, unloved Republicans, whom I blogged about in an earlier post  managed in the 1990s (peaking at 8 per cent) when they seem to a fixture on the parliamentary scene. However, the DS's obvious extremism, which has put in very much under the beady eye of the Czech police and security services, and apparent preference for street politics would seem to rule out put something of an obstacle in the way of electoral growth. In comparative European perspective, as the CR is an oddity because of the weakness of the far right/radical right.

Efforts to formulate some kind of united front of the Czech far-right -  capable of crossing the 1.5% and 3.0% barriers for minimal levels of state funding of electoral and party expense – of the kind abortively tried in the run-up to 2006 election seems not to have been attempted before this years elections. And the National Party (NS), which seemed a few years ago to be re-inventing radical right-wing populism with a smidgen of sophistication (more educated leadership and female leader) since folded due to lack of votes, cash and not being able to do the neo-fascist bootboy stuff well enough even to maintain a sub-cultural following in the manner of the DS despite some pretty foul rhetoric towards the end of its days about deporting Roma to India and the 'Final Solution of the Gypsy Quesiton'.

So can we rest easily in our beds knowing that, whatever they think, say  and do in private, Czechs will stay out of the embrace of the radical right, at least in the polling booth? Not entirely, if polling commissioned by the Czech Interior Ministry on racism, extremism and radicalism and the Czech public's attitudes towards them  is to be believed. Although operating with some rather blunt conceptual tools (radicalism = anti-government/establishment; extremism = anti-system etc) the findings make interesting reading.

The Czech radical right sub-culture and its organizations are comparatively unremarkable and very consistent in their views: collectivist, anti-capitalist, socially authoritarian xenophobic, racist with an especial animus towards Roma and ethno-nationalist. Some 8% of the Czech population are found to broadly share such attitudes with (interestingly) around 3/4of those willing (in theory) to actively support far-right organizations (the rest would potentially just vote for them). This, the report concludes, suggest a potential electorate for a putative successful far-right party of 8% - the peak level of electoral support actually attained by the Republicans (in 1996). However,  I would tend to see this a far bigger potential electorate than the 8% reported in the Czech media, since we seem to be talking about those ideologically very much in tune with the far-right.

Protest voters, we might conjecture could boost the 8% figure significantly in the right circumstances and, as the report depressingly confirms, much of the Czech public shares the 'anti-Gypsyism' (anticikánismus) that is the stock in trade of many CEE radical right groups: measures of the 'social distance' of respondents from minority groups finds that a whopping 45% of respondents take the 'I would remove them from the CR' option when asked about Roma, the most radical of the various statements of feeling offered (and not necessarily an actual policy they support).

There are also some indications that, as well as lacking the organizational and financial wherewithal to (re-)impact national politics - the far-right has so far miscalculated its strategy. The potential far-right electorate, the poll finds, is spread out across the age range, but radical right organizations ' activities are focused on the young, who, it seems often engage with it for the excitement, entertainment, esprit de corps without really buying in to its politics very much. In regional terms, the traditional 'problem regions' of East and North Bohemia are joined by traditional left-wing industrial region around Ostrava and, to a lesser extent, much of Moravia. Relatively prosperous South Bohemia also seems to be a region of electoral potential for the far-right.

Political Capital: Index of Welfare Chauvinism

However, if when and if it re-emerges - and in today's political climate it is not beyond imagination - the radical right would not I suspect be a Czech Jobbik, drawing on traditional far-right sub-culture with a youthful Facebooking using leadership, as seemed to have occurred in Hungary - the kind of subculture well capable of building an organization in the long term as occurred with the Front national in France in 1980s -  but from a sub-strata of Eurospectic, economically populist 'independents'  bubbling around the edge of the frayed Czech political system. According to Hungary's Political Capital think tank Czech top the poll for welfare chauvinism, although I guess that may be in part

Watching the election lauch of Eurosceptic Sovereignty bloc, led by ex-newsreader and former independent MEP, Jana Bobošíková, this year, I couldn't help wondered how long it might be  before the economically interventionist, nationalist and Euroseptic program of Ms B. might tap in to the Czech public's darker moods" as she fulminated against "pseudo-humanist and so-called politically correct waffle about human rights and minorities" in her trademark yellow dress.

Tea parties Czech style?

 The rise of the US Tea Party party movement has held a weird fascination even for those who normally find US politics boring or incomprehensible: revolutionary but right-wing;  a citizens movement, but one making inroads into party-electoral politics; leaderless, but well organised and unstoppable; anti-establishment protest movement born of economic crisis, but one animated by pro-market populism that wants to fell Big Government, rather than shelter behind the protections it can give. None of this is, of course, that inexplicable: money talks, US politics is loosely stuctured and the boundaries between parties and movements are blurred by European standards and there are strong exisiting traditions of anti-state, anti-tax and pro-market populism, recently revivied by the hubble-bubble over the internet economy.

"Budgetary responsability, anyone?"

Still, after the 'shallacking' dealt to out Barrack Obama, Tea Parties are (at least until next week) the wave of the future and commentators across the globe have been looking for parallels elsewhere, especially in their own particular patch. Major TP backer the Heritage Foundation predictably sees the movement going international and manages to mention both the Czech and Slovak Republic as well (rather more implausibly) Sweden as recent examples (was it the Sweden Democrats they were thinking of?). The Economist  also noted the same parallel a while back in relations to the emergence pro-market anti-establishmenTOP09 and Public Affairs in the CR and Freedom and Solidarity (SaS)  in Slovakia.

So not surprisingly, Czech commentators have jumped with alacrity into looking for Čajové dýchánky or teapartismus in their own neck of the woods. That Tea Parties are  an anti-establishment  populist revolt from below against experts and the political class, as MFDnes columnist and blogger Zdeněk Muller concludes, seems a safe, if unenlightening first move. But hang on, who in the Czech Republic is the establishment and who are the whacko populists? For some, any Czech and Central/continental European populism is, by definition, of the statist, collective, redistributionist variety. Milla Lilla on The New York Review of Books, for example, argues that the current wave of social and industrial protest in France against retrenchmant of pensions is a Tea Party a la française: angry, unco-ordinated popular mobilization  ritualistically going through the motions of attacking familiar targets, but triggered by times of global uncertainty -  at once in a familiar idiom, but hollow, new, different and edgy,

So, as early as March, one Czech right-wing commenator was rather confusedly urging a responsible  but Tea Party-ish revolt against the populism of the Social Democrats for wild and irresponsible promises, which allegedly made them unfit to run for office.As Czech voters were not unduly impressed by such promises on polling day (when the Social Democrats flopped badly) that could perhaps have left it to the good sense of the electorate and am I the only person to remember Václav Klaus's weasel words in 1993 that transformation was basically over, or saying that salaries would double during the run-in to the 1996 election? 

So perhaps Lukáš Hoder, writing in FinMag, is closely to the mark in speaking of a 'new populism' of fiscal responsibility  which marries populist animus against elites with pro-market, or rather anti-statist, politics. Viewed through the prism of Czech politics, Public Affairs (VV) has a Tea Party-ish flavour to it in its crusade against political dinosaurs and support for market reforms in healthcare. On the other hand, VV's cutting edge appeal seem to a more a mix of novelty and anti-corruption and its voters and legislators turned out to be a mixed and, in some ways, rather centrist bunch. Like Ivan Krastev, Mr Hoder fingers globalization, detached technocratic elites and top-down European integration as likely suspect for the new populism. But Krastev's once fresh analysis of a couple of years ago now looks oddly dated in its characterisation of populismtmovements in Europe as being defined by cultrual illiberalism, economic egalitarianisn and xenophobically tinged nationalism. To borrow Benjamin Barber's terminology from a seminal article which holds up surprisingly well despite being almost 20 years old (and very stereotypical on the post-communist world), these days angry populist can rally to either 'Jihad' (nativist fundamentalism of all types) or 'McWorld '(citizens reduced to taxpayer-consumers in a world more about markets than states or societies).

Being more savvy than the aveage journalist, political scientists have, of course, picked up on this. Kevin Deegan Krause at Pozorblog , for example,  speaks of the rise of in CEE in recent years of  a new type of anti-establishment party ‘culturally liberal … attractive to younger, educated voters making extensive use of social networking software:’ with similar (10-15%) vote shares

 ‘…not exactly a new party family (though in their cultural liberalism and anti-corruption emphases they share significant elements) and not exactly a new party type (though their methods and organization do not fit fully with any of the currently hypothesized [organiszational] models, even cartel and firm models), but with strong and intersecting elements of both.’

including the Czech Republic's TOP and Public Affairs, Slovakia's Freedom and Solidarity, the Green-ish youth-oriented Politics Can Be Different (LMP) in Hungary as well as  new pro-market parties that crashed onto the political stage in the Baltic states in over the past decade, such as  the People's Party and New Era in Latvia or Res Publica. And, of course, as new youth driven protest parties go, we should not forget the region's most successful one, the definitely not culturally or economically liberal, extreme -right Jobbik,  'a far-right for the Facebook Generation' as an excellent analysis in EUobserver put it, although as one of my PhD student noted at a seminar last week Jobbik activists has a penchant for social activism and community politics(and marching around in paramilitary uniforms).

It's hard to separate out the diverse elements of shifting kaleidescope: anger, youth, disenchament, anti- politics and anti-poltiicians, newnness, globalization, the web as a low cost means of mobilization.  Is the story one of organization, ideology or just raw indignation? And which of these is bringing something new?



The Czech Communists, for example, also see a parallel between Public Affairs (VV) and the Tea Parties, but for them it is old wine in new bottles: all are creatures of powerful business interests plugging the same Neo-Liberal Economic Doctrine (capitals letters for Capital, comrades). Oddly, enough this is very close the analysis carried in one page commentary the Last Word column accompanying the business-oriented Fleet Sheet press summary, which has seen VV and TOP09 (especially) as insurance policies for various politically well-connected business lobbies with the most vested of vested interests. Meanwhile, a column for long established contrarian Czech net journal Britské listy a similar but slightly different angle:  Tea Parties (and by implication VV) it argued are  examples of 'asro-turf,'orchestrated  but spontaneous (pseudo-)grass roots movements created and financed by business sponsors for self-interested reasons - the subject of a new anti-Tea Party documentary (although the US Democrats and New Labour have used the same strategy) This analysis kind of fits, although VV was more virtual astro-turf as popular moblisation (such as it was) took place in cyber space, rather than in the form of placard waving and whooping at conventions.

Tea for ten million on an artifical lawn?

Czech local elections: Another flicker on the seismograph?

Did you miss them? How could you? Perhaps you were distracted doing something this weekend? The Czech local elections - spiced up by brace of Senate contests, which will (mostly) conclude with run-off elections next week - have been and gone. Admittedly, they didn't not quite repeat the political earthquake of the parliamentary elections in May, but there were a number of powerful tremors and further aftershocks bringing down unstable party structures cannot be ruled out.

 

The main story of the weekend seems to be the electoral battering taken by the Civic Democrats (ODS) in major urban centres, where they have historically dominated: with the exception of Plzeň, they were beaten into second place in all provincial capitals by the (still leaderless) Social Democrats (ČSSD)and, as in the parliamentary elections in May, beaten into second place in Prague by TOP09. ODS did, however, manage to be the standard bearer for the centre-right in most of the 27 Senate seats up for re-election, although in most they trail the Social Democrats badly and are likely to register big losses come the second round of voting next week. Interestingly, the Christian Democrats - dumped out of parliament in May - managed to make it into the run-offs against Social Democrats in a couple of seats in Moravia. In the face of some (by Czech standards) pretty tough-minded austerity, many Czech voters have saw-sawed back to the centre-left - or at least actually bothered to vote - suggesting that the social market instincts of the Czech electorate should never be underestimated. A quick glance at numbers of candidates fielded (see below) also, interestingly suggests that ČSSD  (light orange) now has a sustained national organisational reach it once lacked, although almost  half of candidates running were unorganised independents (not graphed).

TOP09, the new party formed by ex-Christian Democrats and independents formed in 2009 and led by aristocratic ex-Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg confirmed that, at least in the short-term it is a force to be reckoned with, with a biggish slate of candidates polling well across the country - with support centred in urban areas - but (with the key exception of Prague) failing to overhaul the Civic Democrats other than in the Moravian city of Zlín (home of the Bat'a shoe empire), where it benefited from the   unpopularity of a long-term Grand Coalition of Civic and Social Democrats and seems well placed to take control of the city in alliance with local independents. In the longer term, however, the lack of a significant further breakthrough to follow up its success in May may weaken the party.  On the other hand, the party can draw comfort from its relatively good electoral performance - and organizational spread - running separately from the Mayors and Independents bloc with whom it ran a joint parliamentary electoral list in May, although the Mayors notched up 1243 councillors to TOP's 1509 councillors despite fielding many more candidates. On the other had, a quick glance at figures for urban boroughs shows that TOP predominates in bigger cities and towns, where there is more local power and money (338 TOP borough councillors to the Mayors' modest 22).

The other new party swept in parliament in May, Public Affairs (VV), fared much less well. Despite fielding a reasonably number of local candidates for a new party, flopped badly in both Senate and local elections: even in Prague where it had its origins it barely scrapped together 5 percent  and thanks to a gerrymandering by the outgoing Civic Democrat administration (splitting Prague into seven electoral districts) failed to make it onto the Prague city council. The Greens suffered a similar fate, although after years of electoral marginality they are probably used to it and, unlike VV whose demise may only be a matter of time, will probably live to fight another day. 

Even star VV Senate candidate, ex-Foreign Minister and ex-Senator Josef Zeleniec failed to make it into the second round running in Prague. How he and various other politicians from small more established liberal centre-right parties must regret hitching their wagons to VV: the party's Prague electoral leader, Markéta Reedová, former leader of the European Democrats, anti-corruption campaigner and bugbear of the Civic Democrats during their less than squeaky-clean time at the helm of the Czech capital, looked shattered after the poll - as well she might having seen her former party (in alliance with the Greens) outpoll VV's well funded operation. TOP09 now seems likely to take over the mayoralty in Prague and there will, I predict, soon be a queue of  prominent ex-VV-ers beating a path to TOP09.

Still, in most places TOP and the Civic Democrats seemed doomed to co-operate with ODS having the upper hand in most places except Prague.

Czech Republic: Protest and survive?

You Tube carries some unedited video from left-liberal internet daily Deník Referendum  of yesterday's large trade union organized protests by public sector workers in Prague against wage and budget cuts. At 40, 000 the numbers are the highest since protests against pension and retirement reforms in the mid-1990s, although much larger numbers took to the streets of the capital in 1999 in protest against the perceived stitching up of politics by the two big parties - now safely at each other's throats - and again in the 'Television Crisis' of 2000, when the same politicians were suspected of heavy handed interference in state TV.

Yesterday's march seems a typically well ordered Czech social protest and interestingly, there seem to be, large number of home made banners suggesting a certain grassroots impetus lacking in mid-1990s -  Czech trade union are more bureaucratic shells and service organizations, than anything distantly resembling a 'labour movement'. It will be interesting to see if the unions can build on this; whether the Social Democrats can exploit it electorally; and - if either of the former - if the government holds its nerve.  

 

All this adds, of course, spice and interest to the upcoming Senate and local elections.

MOR than just ice cream and beer

What can you do in the Czech Republic over several sunny summer days, but eat ice cream, have the odd, beer, seek out the local lido, read all the newspapers and steadily do the usual tour of all the in-laws. Actually, things seem to getting a bit more difficult than they used to be: tougher hygiene regulations and the filtering down of EU structural funds to local politicians and busipeople have seen the closure of a lot of traditional open air municipal pools and their replacement with self-styled 'Aquaparks'  charging double the price which have plenty of water slides and flumes for the kids, but basically nowhere to swim. Even allowing for the traditional 'cucumber season' when there is little hard news, there seems less and less to read in the Czech papers and, if buy five national dailies, you should manage to read most of the interesting news in about half an hour. There even seems to be fewer brands of beer to choose from and the local Janáček brew - nothing to do with the composer in case you were wondering - has daftly rebranded itself as Patriot, presumably in an effort to combine regional appeal with an up-to-date, English sounding moniker. 

There is, however, a little politics to be seen on the highways and byways of Moravia: as we head down from wooded country into agricultural district in search of an old style koupák to swim in, I spot a billboard left over from the election campaign - probably paid for by the Social Democrats - slagging rising new parties TOP09 and Public Affairs (VV), by warning that popular TOP09  figurehead Karel Schwarzenberg will soon by given the chop by ruthless, much less popular TOP deputy leader Miroslav Kalousek. VV leader Radek John is also there in dark glasses, looking vaguely goonish.

In reality, post-election Mr - or, in fact, I should say Prince - Schwarzenberg seems to be quietly slipping out of the limelight of his own accord to get on with the business of running Czech diplomacy as Foreign Minister, and the thought of Radek John, now Interior Minister, as sinister backroom operating would make anyone smile given his bumbling and incompetent first month in office: his floundering performance in a TV interview struggling to explain what his ministry's strategy director did is already the stuff of legend.

The local elections scheduled for October also seem to throwing up some fascinating contests: all eyes are currently on the Alien Versus Predator type battle between the Civic Democrats and TOP09  that is taking shape in Prague, but in Zlín the long, long central boulevard of hypermarkets, industrial units and public building is replete with billboards for a new movement of local independents called Moral Clean-Up for City Hall (MOR), which despite the name seem to be a standard outfit of anti-politically minded worthies not a group of Christian fundamentalists: on the other hand, where does a scratch list of civic minded citizens get hold of the cash for a 30  billboards?  Not to mention a snazzz and professional webiste. The regional daily Zlínský deník said that MOR was 'funded by another electoral list' - presumably as some kind of spolier party'  - producing howls of protest for the new group, but hard information seems hard to come by.

What price Czech democracy? About three quid a vote

The Czech press reported that Roma in Ostrava were each being paid 100 crowns (about 4 euros or £3 sterling) to vote for the Social Democrats, although there seems to be no real evidence that the practice of vote buying (a not unknown occurence in some countries in SE Europe) has spread to Central Europe. And why should the Social Democrats have bothered when they could more easily buy the votes of Roma and non-Roma alike with promise of generous welfare benefits and an an extra '13th month' pension payment?

In fact, however, 100kč per vote does seem to be about the going rate for a moderately successful political party - at least in terms of campaign expenses. A quick analysis of parties officially declared campaign spending this year as reported in Hospodářské noviny of 31 May shows. Of course, for less established parties, which shed votes things are more expensive: 170-190 crowns for the Socia,l Civic and Christian Democrats, while new parties TOP09 and Public Affairs pull votes much more cheaply, even if you are sceptical about the officially declared total spending, which seem suspiously low. The Communists, whose vote stood still, who are known for their cheapo campaigns probably represent a happy median: so, if you are thinking of launching a new party in the Czech Republic - and I think it could catching - budget for an outlay of about 30 million.

Czech parliament: Public Affairs and Communists do best on women and youth

And how new are those new Czech parties? In terms of youth and greater representation of women - both useful tools in the content-free populist's political toolbox, but also genuinely important in terms of democratic quality - a quick glance at the new Czech parliament yields a surprise. That well known new force the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia have second largest percentage of deputies under 30 and the largest proportion of female deputies.

Admittedly, the Communists also have by a country mile the largest percentage of over 50s - and possibly those two figures are connected - but there's a striking contrast with the Social Democrats who are dinosaurs both in terms of age and gender balance. Surprising in a party with both well developed youth and women's sections. Perhaps the reason is due to drop in the number Social Democrat deputies affecting less established and less powerful young and/or female politicians, although Czech voters were able to re-rank candidates and did so extensively.

As might be expected Public Affairs still does rather well - VV has the largest number of young deputies and the second highest proportion of women. TOP deputies, by contrast, have a much less youthful profile, although they are in the middle in terms of female representatives.

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.

Czech elections: Mind my Wordle

So what are the Czech elections about? Well, as glance at the rash of orange billboards - and milder outbreak of blue ones - will tell you "It's the welfare state, stupid". And especially the health service, where the nominal charges introduced by the last centre-right government (remember that? Seems along time ago) have become a totemic issue.

Feeding the party platforms of the two main contenders into the Wordle the online word frequency art program basically confirms this impression. Words like 'public' 'health' 'benefit' and 'care' proliferate in the word clouds generated both for the Civic Democrats (ODS) (top - blue and green) and the Social Democrats (orange - opposite) although ODS alone lays claim to the words 'working' and 'insurance'. Linguistically, the Social Democrats seem big on decisive top down action (or the promise of it) with the word Zavedeme ('We will introduce') topping the list, while ODS's key doing word is 'Solution' (Řešení) although as this is not the imperfect aspect that more suggestive of beginning or trying to solve than resolving: 'Approach' might be another translation. And what - given that I am something of a born again fan of Grand Coalitions - we run both big parties' programmes together through Wordle: the answer is a certain agreement on the key issues but not much of a coincidence of language (less frequent and hence smaller key words in the cloud) suggesting - perhaps a degree of ideological difference, although the extent to which that is real rather than just a matter of ideologically phrasing is, of course not clear, from this exercise.