After a dramatic session, the Czech Senate approved an amendment to the electoral law on Friday. Once effective, the amendment will change the current proportional voting system into a strong majority system, which will favor large parties. More importantly, passage was crucial for the minority Social Democratic government, since it was bound to support the amendment by its “opposition agreement” with the ODS; the Social Democrats’ failure to push the law through the Senate could have led to the ODS withdrawing its support to the minority government. The government seems therefore safe following Friday’s vote – at least for the short term - and the quasi-coalition between the Social Democrats and the ODS seems to have survived its biggest test to-date. Still, the government has more trouble ahead this week, as the ODS is about to attack its and the central bank’s actions on IPB on Tuesday, when a new session of Parliament begins.
(Ondřej Daťka)