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.

Czech politics: The urge to merge?

The ink's hardly dry on the Czech coalition agreement and the Civic Democrats (ODS) haven't even yet been routed in the local elections - although we still haven't the foggiest who their candidate for mayor of Prague is - and already ODS MEP Hynek Fajmon is weighing in on his blog Spojit ODS a TOP09? Ne! Blog - Hynek Fajmon (blog.iDNES.cz) to say his party should not merge with TOP09. He's  dead right that it wouldn't work for organisational reasons - ODS is too structured and locally embedded, compared to TOP for merger to be an easy prospect and, for the same reasons, a loose electoral alliance like a join list would probably flounder. The stuff about ideological incompatibilities is - ODS is eurosceptic and anti-environmental, TOP a load of tree hugging europhiles - is, however, wishful thinking. True believers like Fajmon are becoming something of rare breed in ODS these days even in the rareified environment of the European Parliament. After all, the two parties signed a coalition agreement on time and in good order with most of the cracks down Public Affairs' esoteric demands on referenda and the the like.

And, call me a fashion victim if you will (curiously, no one ever does...), but with sweaters like the one sported by Mr F. on his blog, you do begin feel that the days of the Civic Democrats may indeed be numbered...I own a similar one myself.

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.

Now listen carefully children....

Hmm, the Czech Civic Democrats seem to be pitching for the votes of 12 year olds in this South Park parody reported in iHNed.cz- still what were British Conservative candidates told to bear in mind when addressing audiences? "Imagine you are talking to a class of primary school children"?

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.

Czech parties start billboard war, go negative

Six weeks before the parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic and the campaign is in full swing - at least in the media and in the rapid proliferation of billboards and campaign hoardings just about everywhere. By contrast, in the UK we have just over two weeks to go to our own poll and everything seems oddly low key. I have yet to see single billboard and media coverage is mercifully easy to escape.

In the CR, most of the running is being made by the Social Democrats, who have flooded the country with their trademark orange billboards with bland advertising style depiction of 'ordinary people' from different walks of life and clear promises to retain and/or increase social benefits of all kinds and to abolish the modest 30 crown charge introduced by the last centre-right government for visits to the doctor (I think most regional authorities - all bar Prague run by the Social Democrats - are paying it anyway, so de facto it may largely have been abolished already). The party also promises not to make swingeing cuts in public services, but to put up taxes and (especially) clobber the rich. Centre-right parties - the Civic Democrats and the new TOP09 party - are determined to make precisely such cuts and - by standards of the British campaign- are being pretty direct and up front about where the axe would fall , althought - as the Social Democrats point out - CR's fiscal deficit is actually rather modest in comparison with the UK, although as a weaker and poorer economy Czechs should probably be concerned.

Other parties are conspicous by their billboard absence. I saw only one Christian Democrat billboard during the whole of my recent trip to the CR - the party is probably in disarray and/or out of cash - and none for the Civic Democrats, (ODS) although this seems to be a deliberate strategy to hold fire until the final two weeks of the campaign and rely on press advertising telling voters that the Social Democrats will hand their money to scroungers (picture of some muscular and rough looking bloke in a pub - presumably during the daytime). ODS have run a load of anonymous billboards satirising the Social Democrats' big welfare message more overtly ('Paroubek: I will abolish vets' fees', 'ČSSD: we oppose getting up early in the morning').

The Social Democrats have responded in kind with some still more blunt negative advertising showing various ODS leaders under the banner 'Don't blame us, you voted for us' and one of ODS's stand-in leader Petr Nečas proclaiming 'We don't care less about ordinary people: Charges for visiting the doctor will simply happen'. Going negative in the CR lacks a certain lightness of touch and element of humour, but I dare say it is effective.

And, how are things going in the Czech campaign? So far Social Democrats are comfortably ahead in the polls and look on course to emerge as largest pary (probably not gaining (m)any seats) and set for a minority government backed by the Communists with occasional deal making smaller parties of the centre and centre-right to get through some of the stuff the Communists won't wear. Petr Nečas, performed better than expected in TV head-to-head with Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek - despite a somewhat cerebral geekish image, he was confident, to the point and able throw in a few sound bites, although was Paroubek better at hammering home basic messages likely to be understood and remembered by voters in their living rooms - but he seems unlikely to be a game changer.

The 64,000 crown question is, however, whether such left-right co-operation would extend to some of the more painful fiscal measures and rowing back from campaign promises - and certainly from he tone of the campaign - likely to be necessary in government. Paroubek, despite having built his political success in the last four years on being a bruising populist, made his early career as moderate and has plenty of experiences working with the right in Prague politics, so I suspect, in reality, he probably has a shrewd appreciation not only of how to win elections but also of what can and (more to the point) what cannot be delivered when they have been won.

Exit Topolánek followed by a geek?

So in the end, Czech Civic Democrat leader Miroslav Topolánek met the same fate as the hands of his more illustrious predecessor Václav Klaus - booted out by regions for electoral failure. Only this being Topolánek it more clumsy, disasterous and bathetic than the elegant failures and climdowns that mark the lower points of Mr Klaus's career. While Klaus has the good sense to read the runes and step down in 2002, the maladroit Topolánek suffered the indignity of a massive vote against him in the ODS executive summarily removing him from the top of the party's South Moravian list and role as the party's national 'electoral leader' for the campaign. And, of course, Topolánek has been ousted weeks before an election not weeks after one - an impressive act of collective political courage (or desperation) by ODS intended to stem the party's slide in the polls and loss of support to small new pro-reform parties.

The last straw seems to have been one of Topolánek's characteristic foot-in-mouth remarks referring the Jewish background of caretaker Prime Minister Fischer - ironically the remarks were made in an interview with Lui magazine for gay men in a fumbling, bumbling effort to emphasize how unprejudiced he was: reading the transcript it might just be the case that Topolánek is talking hypothetical remarks about the lack of resolve and toughness of members of the current caretaker government (one of whom is openly gay - a rarity in Czech politics) and how it's really just a matter of personality ('...Fischer. He's not gay, he's simply Jewish and he backs off. It's character') . However, a (more out of context) video of the remarks suggests that he is straightfowardly linking lack blokish political determination is a consequence of Jewishness or homosexuality.

What ever the truth of, it's appearances that count in politics. - and frankly what kind of an idiot politically would launch into any kind of off-the-cuff remarks about the Jewish background. Well, Topolánek that's who.

It now seems a matter of time before Topolánek formally steps down as leader and disappears into the political shadows. His replacement as 'electoral leader' is Petr Necas, one time Labour and Social Affairs Minister, spokesman for intellectually minded social conservative sin ODS and leadership contender in 2002 (when he was endorsed by Vaclav Klaus and lost out in a narrow three-way contest). Necas is experienced, respectable and a safe pair of hands - certainly not the kind of person likely to be caught with penis on public display on Silvio Berlusconi's poolside - and known for his dull worthiness. Leadership rival Jan Zahradil bluntly termed him a nerd (suchar) - or perhap 'geek' is a better translation - in 2002.

Such anti-charisma is being plugged by some Czech political pundits as likely to blunt the electoral attacks of both like TOP09 alternative right-wing parties and the Social Democrats both of whom were to some extent running against Topolánek, although the Social Democrats' big welfare/big stimulus message seems likely to play well whoever leads ODS and I personally am sceptical that a bet on John Major-like dullness will pay off, a fact Necas himself seems to have grasped by trying to show his macho side, telling us that sometimes he does lose his temper and threatening to pull ODS nominated ministers out of the caretaker technocrat government in last few pre-election weeks.

A political obituary for Topolánek? He's the man who held ODS post-Klaus, defined belatedly and for a more pragmatic, ecologically-minded realistic pro-market centre-right politics in the CR; and saw off Klaus and got the Lisbon Treaty ratified by the Czech parliament. A more substantive and interesting political figure than the gaffes, vulgar slips, lack of media polish, messy personal life for which he is likely to be remember. His greatest political failure was not to be an electoral winner in 2006, not to hold his minority government together in the spotlight of the EU Presidency. The greatest bit of bad luck of this famously lucky politican was the postponement of the scheduled early election of 2009 by the Czech Constitutional Court. After this Topolánek's judgement and taste for politics seem to have deserted him, until he was mowed down by his own party.

You wonder, however, if any leader of ODS can ever really win an election in a meaningful sense ever again. After all every Czech elections since 1996 has seen the Social Democrats do better than expected, either by winning or do better than expected in defeat. Why should 2010 be any different?

And what one wonder would electoral defeat presage for the now very diverse Czech centre-right?

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.

Tory story

Our piece on the European Conservatives and Reformers group in Political Quarterly gets the once over from one of the bloggers on Conservative Home. It is, alas, not a very insightful commentary as, as well confusing the Civic Democrats (ODS) with Poland's Civic Platform in the initial posting and for good measure implying that ODS leader Miroslav Topolánek has just taken over as head of Poland's other main party, Law and Justice, it spends most of its time on auto-pilot rebutting the charge sheet of media criticism of the ECR summarise dat the start of the article (which we don't agree with).

I suppose that's what comes from being in the trenches of the party political blogosphere churning out comment and criticism to keep whatever side you on supplied with ammunition and dutifully toe-ing the party line, or pussyfooting around i (in this case we are asked to belivethat the Tories' East European allies are a market friendly proper centre-right, whereas similar parties not interested in the ECR embrace like Hungary's Fidesz are evil populist baddies).

Like a lot of politics lecturers, I know, while it fascinates me, the the whole me good/you bad bullshit world of partisan politics also rather appals.

For the first time in very a long while, I almost feel glad to be an academic...

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.

Czech Republic: Civic Democrats' leading green quits

Bad news for anyone holding our any hope for the greening' of the Czech Civic Democrats (ODS) alone the lines what the British Tories under David Cameron have (supposedly) embraced: ODS's one renown and respected ecological expert Senator Bedřich Moldan is quitting the party after 20 years membership and is tipped to stand for the new TOP09 party. He is interested in standing for a new Senate seat, but won't defend his existing one where the partner of ODS leader Miroslav Topolánek is likely to be parachuted in (a nepotisitic looking move that is likely to damage the party - and will probably be stoked by undercurrents of sexism which always make sure that prominant Czech women politicians always have a particularly bad time).

Moldan's statement as reported in the Czech press does not really explain his decision to quit the party, but it seems more than possibly that political differences may have something to with it, although on the other hand he stuck loyally by the party under Václav Klaus when it was at its most militantly anti-ecologist. Indeed, he was a member from its foundation in 1991. These days the party is more about climate-change-dunno than climate change denial, although VK has naturally left his ideological fingerprints everywhere despite stepping down as leader the best part of a decade ago.

Dr Novák Goes to Prague

As the last 2009 issue of the news magazine Respekt points out, one of the few political players who will be able look back on difficult, confusing and not very good year for Czech politics is caretaker Prime Minister, Jan Fischer. Chosen for his obscurity, adminstrative competence, colourlessness and lack of political partisanship and clout, Mr Fischer, the head of the Czech Statistical Office, has since morphed into the Little Big Man of Czech politics, enjoying record approval ratings even has he oversees painful economic medicine and has gained a degree of leverage and free of manoevre from the parties that put him into office. He also, of course, shoulld include the judges of the Czech Constitutional Court on his New Years card list as it was their decision that scrapped the planned bringing foward of scheduled parliamentary elections as unconstitutional - and hence extending is term of office from one summer to one year. Rumour (vehemently denied by Mr Fischer himself) even has it that he might, at the crucial moment, throw in his lot with the new TOP09 party, still doing well in the polls having edged narrowly ahead of the Communists in to take third place.

So what going on? Alas, as a little judicious underlining of the Respekt profile by Ondřej Kundra makes clear, there is little mystery in Mr Fischer's seemingly unlikely political stardom and the magazine pretty much answers its own questions even before it has asked them.

As Respekt flatteringly notes, Fischer

"... has none of the usual arrogance of political bigwigs (papalášské projevy) taking the form of insulting journalists and political opponents, speeding madly through red traffic lights with sirens on, or opulent holidaying with lobbyists (s lobbisty) [something of a dirty word in Czech, lobbista]. And his personal life too has not changed since he left the Statistical Office to take up the post of Prime Minister. In fact, his life hardly differs from that of the ordinary Czech (běžného Čecha)

Every morning he goes out of his high-rise flat to walk the dog, and when his packed schedule allows, relaxes by taking weekend walks with his second wife Dana in the Krkonoš Mountains. He enjoys reading (his favourite authors are Karel Poláček and Isaac Bashevis Singer) and has for years regularly driven to have lunch and his favour patisseries in an ordinary (řadové) restaurants in a small, Central Bohemian town near to where he owns a small holiday cottage (chalupu)"

We also learn that he's very goal oriented and has learned good English

In other words, Mr Fischer is, or appears to be, ordinary, decent (I am thinking of the Czech word slušný here) person and a non-politician with a modest lifestyle of a 'typical' Czech: hard-working and desire to educate himself still further; high-rise living in communist-era flats; a dog (no doubt a dachshund) ; safe, rather middle brow literary tastes; cheap, unpretentious pub meals and a sweet tooth; and a liking for healthy outdoor pursuits not too far afield from the family chata or chalupa (roughly the Czech equivalent of the Russian datcha).

You've heard of Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

Well, this is a sort of Mr Novák Goes To Prague.

For me - however, worthy, dull and ordinary Mr Fischer may actually be - this rings hollow. Indeed it smacks of cliché. The same rather fawning pen portraits of the unremarkable but honest Czech official cataputled to high political office can be found in the early 1990s describing Václav Klaus who, let us remember, also had a powerful work ethic, lived in a high rise flat , learnt good English and enjoyed hiking. The reference to the small town Bohemia is also rather archetypical. Admittedly, the CR is a country whose pattern of settlement is characterised by a predomince of small and medium towns. But the small-medium sized town iand its values are in many ways the 'typical', ster eotypical Czech community that you can see snow covered on a dozens of Czech Christmas and New Year cards. Not for nothing did Karel Poláček use the okresní město ('county town') to depict Czech society in microcosm.

As different elements of the profile makes clear, Mr Fischer is, in fact, probably, like Mr Klaus, a more complex, unusual and interesting character than the dull Everyman evoked above. He is, for example, not only the Czech Republic's first Jewish Prime Minister - no big deal in the CR except for various nutcases on the neo-Nazi fringe - but also the first PM seriously to practice or profess any religious faith. He is also someone very much part of the Czech administrative elite: a well paid, well connected civil servant close the heart of government for years - indeed, the only highly placed official to regularly attend cabinet meetings - and, of course, someone whose early career begins in the late communist era and includes the obligatory Communist Party card.

The profile has, however, hit on a deeper truth. This is (sometimes) how many Czech would like their rulers to be: technocratic, dull, like them and apolitical, at least in the sense of being non-party or non-partisan.

So it is actually this more Dr Novák Goes to Prague or Engineer Novák Goes to Prague as Czechs in their anti-political fantasy lives - stoked to a high degree by much of the country's intellectual discourse - would reallly to be rescued by well qualified ordinary technocrat rather than a completely average (wo)man in the street.

And, in fairness, both the writer and Mr Fischer himself clearly realize that the current caretaker PM's political superstar-dom is the Czech public's latest fling with anti-political intellectual populism seeking temporary respite in government thinkers, artists, technocrats and aristocrats
As both note Mr Fischer does not need to put together a programme beyond that of 'normal admionistration' of the state; run a party, contest elections, broker coalitions and trade-off all the multiple demands these throw up. No wonder he can remain calm and civil and avoid slagging off political opponents in emotive, overblown rhetoric.

Happily, Mr Fischer ain't no Fujimori in the making and seems perfecti;y aware that he is riding the crest of the latest anti-political wave and will soon need to step down and walk away into the sunset, noting that

'People in my position must be under political control, must - in short - emerge from voting by the public. Because there is always the rise that a populist could emerge, who could start to abuse this position, build up in own position on it. That's unacceptable. A bad signal for democracy'

Indeed. Perhaps more worrying is the sneaking suspicion that many Czech voters wouldn't actually be at all that bothered if their country took a few years off politics to be run on liberal lines by a committee of upright but approachable technocrats - a sort of Central European Hong Kong. Perhaps as a province in the liberal-market Mitteleuropa run from Vienna by a caste of solid (unelected) Habsburg-schooled administrators, which Hayek and von Mises projected in 1940s.

Going green with ODS in Copenhagen

In a loosely Cameroonian spirit, the Czech Civic Democrats (ODS) are calling for global environmental responsibility over climate change at the Copenhagen conference: a tough call, as they are not entirely agreed that it is taken place and, if it is, what is causing it. The two most prominent ODSáci attending the conference are a case in point: ecological expert and one of the few plausible green figures in the party, Senator Bedřich Moldan, and the more climate change sceptical MEP Miroslav Ouzký.

The result? A confused press release, which carefully doesn't mention the cause of climate change, but instead stresses a grab bag of lesser (but shared) ODS concerns: money must not be wasted; the competitiveness of European industry must not be damaged; deforestation in the Third World is a/the key issue; technology not emissions limits will save us; big countries are dominating the conference and obstructing an agreement (wake up and smell the fair trade coffee, gentlemen). Somehow the party is more irritating in confused, evasive mode, than it is when in traditional Klausian flat earth mode.

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 Republic: No fright on the right?

The Czech Civic Democrats' euro-election slogan Řešení místo strašení ("Solutions Not Scaremonging") - intended to counter the Social Democrats' hardhitting negative campaigning and capitalise on the relatively good reception among Czechs of the Topolánek government's prematurely cut short Presidency of the EU - is something of new departure for the party. From anti-communist and free market crusaders for whose election campaigns themselves featured a good deal of strašení about the left, the party is reborn into one of pragamatic and moderate doers who went down with the sinking ship representing the country, while left-wing wreckers and disloyal internal elements caused havoc.

If you take away the opposition-bashing hyperbole, there's probably even an element of truth in this self-image and it is interesting to see how Topolánek et al have been quietly reinterpreting the role of history of their party and especially the role of Václav Klaus to reinforce this. Essentially, in the (early) 1990s - we are told - Klaus was pragmatic fixer who got things done, then at some unspecified point (but certainly by 2002) turned into an ideological monster and parted company with both ODS and his earlier self. Minister Jekyll and President Hyde, as it were. Hmmm...

Nevertheless, saying that you're a hardworking moderate team of incumbents interested in the practical business of government has not always been the a winning formula in Czech politics. Anyone with a long enough memory may remember that in 1992 the ex-dissidents of the middle of the road Civic Movement (OH) tried precisely this tack - billboards of rowing boats and appeals to voters to all pull together, as I recall - and were, of course, duly slaughted in the elections by VK and the rising Civic Democratic Party.

Of course, today's ODS is a far tougher, more formidable and professional outfit than OH whose disdain for party politics was probably their undoing, but parallel was not lost on Klaus himself, who hurled this as a term of abuse at Topolánek's ODS for its alleged loss of right-wing ideological commitment and embrace of various figures associated with his predecessor Václav Havel and (rather more tenuously) the original OH.

Credible deniability?

Lidové noviny reports the latest iconoclastic view to emerge from the entourage of Czech President Václav Klaus: The deputy head of the presidential chancellory Petr Hájek tells a seminar of the President's CEP thinktank that the theory of evolution is 'erroneous' and that Intelligent Design should taught in Czech schools. Evolution is - yeah, you guessed it - suspected a left-wing ideology. Should you want to, you can read the whole thing here

I suppose we shoud acknowledge that CEP does tackle controversial themes that others in Czech politics avoid and occasionally comes up with sensible conclusions (on pro-natalist population policy, for example - VK was against) . And Hájek is admittedly something of a loose cannon, retained as Klaus himself has occasion suggested on occasional for his aggressive and (sometimes) brilliant camapigning (He is the man who thought up the 'Head Up' slogan that pulled Klaus's Civic Democrats back from the electoral bring in 1998), but you do sometines wonder where the contrarianism of the Prague Castle will lead next. Herbal cures for AIDS? Holocaust denial?

Czech Civic Democrats: Summer dreams, but not split down the seams...

Ladislav Mrklas of the Czech centre-right CEVRO thinktank offers an interesting, and to my mind very realistic, appraisal of the political prospects of the Civic Democratic party: factional tension has damped down prior to the euro-elections; the party may go off the idea of backing early parliamentary elections if it gets a whipping in June; if they do take place ex-PM and ODS leader Topolánek will have to step down if the party is badly beated resulting in 'chaos' and which his opponents (back by President Klaus) will try to fill; an extra joker in the pack is that there will beo big turnover in ODS parliamentary group is likely if and when there are national elections, as regional ODS bosses have candidate selection firmly under their control. Right-wing eurosceptic challengers are not serious force unless and until Václav Klaus endorses one of them, which might push them over the 5% barrier. Right-wing euroscepticism in ODS is not the party splitting issue is once was for the British Tories reckons Mrklas, as it is concentrated at elite level and at the grassroots with intermediate layers more inclined to pragmatism.

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.

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?