CZ Politics: Lower House Speaker likely not to be elected today again Election of the Lower House’s speaker is on the agenda today again. Nevertheless, CSSD recalled its candidate for the post as it did not receive a more detailed program from the Centre-right coalition. CSSD and the Communists will not likely support the centre-right candidate and therefore we do not expect the Speaker to be elected today prolonging the current deadlock. CSSD earlier again repeated that ODS should negotiate with it without its coalition partners (the Greens and Christian Democrats) In addition, ODS’s leader Mirek Topolanek has a deadline to inform the President about the progress of forming a new Government next week.
Our view: We continue to see two possibilities as the outcome from the current deadlock; (i) ODS and CSSD agree on some co-operation or (ii) or a technocratic Government leading to early elections. Despite speculations in the press that both camps are trying to lure MPs from the other camps, we see the success of it as the least likely scenario. With regards to Czech Blue chips, the most sensitive is CEZ and the condition of preserving the mining limits and no extension of nuclear blocks pushed by the Greens. Any weakening of the Greens position would be supportive for CEZ. Zentiva may be sensible in the sense of a potential Healthcare reform, which should ultimately favour generic drug producers.