Candidate for the speaker’s position to be nominated today

Today by 4.00pm CET is the deadline for nomination of a candidate for the position of the Lower House speaker, with elections held on Friday, July 21. CSSD said that they would nominate their candidate but without the condition put up by the centre-right coalition that the Speaker would have to step down in case of a third attempt to appoint a prime minister (the Speaker nominates the PM in the 3. attempt). The centre-right coalition responded by its plant o nominate their candidate and mentioned willingness to co-operate with the Communists on the vote. CSSD responded saying that they will not propose its candidate if there is another candidate proposed.

Our view: We believe that CSSD will continue to obstruct the post-election deadlock in order to secure the Speaker’s position and to consequently nominate its leader, Jiri Paroubek (current PM), to form a Government after the first two attempts to form the centre-right coalition would fail. CSSD would not support to have its candidate for the speaker competing as it would allow the Communists to support the other candidate. Obviously, unconditional election of the CSSD’s candidate is not acceptable for the centre-right. Therefore, there are two possibilities: a grand coalition or early elections. CSSD already proposed a grand coalition, which has been refused by the ODS while ODS proposes early elections, which have been refused by the CSSD. Therefore, the deadlock continues with the probability of early elections rising.