Czech Politics: Fiala government

[Samof94]

How does having Covid rates that look like Spain affect them politically?

Opposition to ANO got mobilised in regional elections, older voters stayed at home (= bad result for KSCM and CSSD). According to some analysis, only 40 % of ANO voters from previous parliamentary elections participated in 2020 regional elections (compare to 80 % of ODS voters). I can't share the images, but if you find Denik N newspaper tomorrow frontpage, you can see more numbers from this analysis. ANO party was expecting a much better result.

Do they have mail in voting for both Czech and EU elections?

[jan.klusacek]

The charts can be seen here with voter movements from the 2016 regional elections, 2017 parliamentary elections, 2018 presidential election and 2019 European elections.

gitlab.com/michalskop/volby-2020/-/blob/master/README.md?fbclid=IwAR0QIVCg5sjdRkyEYwEK4VvjqP4PY-kVfIiYkDZSlKUBCsFU5J7fUfuuKAU

Thank you!

How does having Covid rates that look like Spain affect them politically?

Opposition to ANO got mobilised in regional elections, older voters stayed at home (= bad result for KSCM and CSSD). According to some analysis, only 40 % of ANO voters from previous parliamentary elections participated in 2020 regional elections (compare to 80 % of ODS voters). I can't share the images, but if you find Denik N newspaper tomorrow frontpage, you can see more numbers from this analysis. ANO party was expecting a much better result.

Do they have mail in voting for both Czech and EU elections?

There is no voting by mail in Czech Republic.

[Samof94]

How do they avoid long American style lines?

[jan.klusacek]

How do they avoid long American style lines?

There is polling station for almost every street and polls are open for long hours (Friday 2-10 PM, Saturday 8 AM - 2 PM). I've never waited in polling station, even in presidential election (highest turnout) I directly went to the voting booth.

[Samof94]

That makes a lot more sense to be honest but most countries don’t have a legacy of an apartheid like system when it comes to voting.

[Diouf]

The 2nd round of the senate elections has finished today, and the turnout is a whopping 16.67% with more than 90% counted. As expected a lot of wins from STAN, and a lot of centre-rightish coalitions or local alliances. ANO looks like it could win a seat in Karviná in a straight battle with CSSD. An "exciting" race which has had a turnout of 7.88% with 90% counted. So the vote lead for the ANO candidate currently is 3 161 to 3 088...

[Diouf]

Alliances building ahead of 2021 election



ODS, KDU-CSL and TOP09 have announced a deal to run as a coalition in the general election in 2021. The three center-right parties also tried to convince STAN to join the agreement, but STAN preferred negotiating a deal with the Pirates. However, it seems like the Pirate membership is not fully convinced of the advantages of a STAN deal. An indicative online poll on the Pirate forum indicated 51% against and 43% for. The final decision is expected in a vote 13-16 November.

Particularly for the smaller parties, it can make sense to gang up with a bigger party. For single parties, the threshold is 5%, two-party alliances have to get 10% and the three-party alliance 15%. With the current ODS and Pirate strength, the alliances should fairly easily cross these threshold.

[PSOL]

What are the arguments for and against the Pirates working with STAN?

[Diouf]

What are the arguments for and against the Pirates working with STAN?

Ivan Bartos, the Pirate leader, said that the Pirates and STAN are attracting many similar voters. By joining together, they can focus on attracting more voters instead of competing with each other for the same votes. The argument in favour of both coalitions are also that it allows for stronger opposition to ANO. Instead of it being ANO and the many dwarfs, it shows ANO against two stronger coalitions.

Some Pirates are worried that, despite the candidate list reflecting the strength of the two parties, STAN could end up with a much bigger share of their common MPs than deserved as they tend to have local, well-known candidates while the Pirate brand is usually stronger than their young parliamentary candidates in most regions. Also there are some doubts whether STAN is too centrist and non-ideological, which could means the election of MPs whose views are too far away from the Pirate's liberal values.

[PSOL]

Could you clarify what you mean and explain more relating to the last paragraph?

[Diouf]

Could you clarify what you mean and explain more relating to the last paragraph?

Maybe the wording was unclear, but some have doubts about whether some parts of STAN lean towards the right too much. Party leader Ivan Bartos lays out the conclusions of the party's analysis of a cooperation on their forum.

Bartos argues that there is largely agrement between the parties on 70% of issues. This figure is reached by comparing the two parties' positions on 103 issues. In the full analysis, the issues of agreement listed are: Foreign policy and the relationship with the EU, reduction of labor taxation, digitization of the state, health care, transparency, the importance of culture and its financing, rural development, financing of social services and pensions, state cybersecurity, the value of education and fair salaries for teachers, migration, justice, agriculture and environmental protection and pandemic management.
The analysis then mentions some issues where Pirates are progressive, but STAN are more conservative: Copyright law, regulation of addictive behavior, same-sex marriage, support for innovation in education, the defence budget and different sector taxes (higher on e.g. financial sector). Also there are of course some pecularities in STAN in terms of a significant focus on localism, which can make it more difficult to carry through uniform, national changes.

The link to Bartos post is below. There you can also find the full analysis

https://forum.pirati.cz/viewtopic.php?p=721773&fbclid=IwAR1aQY2TXvmflVdSifYnK4q60QORXn3iKJg7biqLOJoilcwz1jbK_lxphOg#p721773

[njwes]

Diouf, I know that I'm not the one who asked for it, but thanks for the post above and the clarification/explanation! Obviously I'm very ill informed, but it does seem like the issues the two parties disagree on--with the exception perhaps of defense budget--are enormously outweighed by the issues they agree on, both in number and importance. Do you think they'll really be enough to hinder any cooperation between the two parties? 

[Diouf]

Diouf, I know that I'm not the one who asked for it, but thanks for the post above and the clarification/explanation! Obviously I'm very ill informed, but it does seem like the issues the two parties disagree on--with the exception perhaps of defense budget--are enormously outweighed by the issues they agree on, both in number and importance. Do you think they'll really be enough to hinder any cooperation between the two parties? 

Well for many pirates, I think copyright law is a very central theme , but yes most of the issues of disagreement are not major economic issues. I think most of the party leadership is for cooperation, and their analysis suggests that most of their voters are as well, but it's the members who will decide and that is where there is doubt. And yes that might be as much about identity as how much economic difference there is between the party programs. So there are fears about the party losing its identity. One of those in favour of cooperation writes about how working with STAN locally "disturbed the prejudices about Pirates as junkies and neo-marxists". But I think a large chunk of the members would like them to keep a distinct identity, and not be like other parties. However, you could argue that if they were form a coalition after an election, they would join these parties in close cooperation anyway.

[Diouf]

On Tuesday, the Pirate Party's members gave the final approval to the coalition deal with STAN. In the end, the vote was very clear with 79% of voting members in favour. STAN's national committee approved the deal last week. The parties' common policies will include a bigger tax credit to improve the take-home pay for lower-paid workers, same-sex marriage, a big public digitalization reform, better health care, make sure Czechia reaches its Paris Treaty climate treaties by f.ex. closing coal-fired plants earlier, legalized cannabis, preparations for the adoption of the euro and efforts to boost entrepreneurship.
A Pirate will be on top of the list in 10 regions, while STAN will lead the alliance in the remaining 4. STAN leader Vit Rakusan will lead the alliance in Středočeský kraj, the most populous region, which covers the Central Bohemian region surrounding Prague. Ivan Bartos, the Pirate leader, will be top of the list in Ústí nad Labem.

Alliances are really in fashion in Czechia this year, and a third one might be on its way. The CSSD is trying to make an agreement with the Green Party. The environmentalists only achieved 1.46% in 2017 and have rarely polled over 2% since. Therefore, an alliance would probably be in danger of missing the 10% threshold, so instead it will probably be Green candidates running on the Social Democrat list if an agreement is reached. The parties had succesful cooperation in two regions in the regional election.

Update on outcomes of the regional elections. STAN and ODS ended with 4 regional governors each, ANO ended up with only 3 governors while CSSD and KDU-CSL has one each. And we then of course have a Pirate Mayor of Prague, but that region of course held elections back in 2018 alongside the other local elections.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Alliances are really in fashion in Czechia this year, and a third one might be on its way. The CSSD is trying to make an agreement with the Green Party. The environmentalists only achieved 1.46% in 2017 and have rarely polled over 2% since. Therefore, an alliance would probably be in danger of missing the 10% threshold, so instead it will probably be Green candidates running on the Social Democrat list if an agreement is reached. The parties had succesful cooperation in two regions in the regional election.

That seems like it will net votes... for the Pirates.

[Flyersfan232]

Alliances building ahead of 2021 election



ODS, KDU-CSL and TOP09 have announced a deal to run as a coalition in the general election in 2021. The three center-right parties also tried to convince STAN to join the agreement, but STAN preferred negotiating a deal with the Pirates. However, it seems like the Pirate membership is not fully convinced of the advantages of a STAN deal. An indicative online poll on the Pirate forum indicated 51% against and 43% for. The final decision is expected in a vote 13-16 November.

Particularly for the smaller parties, it can make sense to gang up with a bigger party. For single parties, the threshold is 5%, two-party alliances have to get 10% and the three-party alliance 15%. With the current ODS and Pirate strength, the alliances should fairly easily cross these threshold.

what is spo position on coaltiions? looking at polls they could very well be king makers

[Diouf]

what is spo position on coaltiions? looking at polls they could very well be king makers

Do you mean SPD? I doubt they will enter any coalitions with significant parties, but perhaps some candidates from some of the tiny right-wing parties could get a spot on their candidate list, or more likely, just join the party. SPD seems quite certain of getting into parliament at the moment (polling 7.5-10.5%), so they don't need any coalition, and I can't really see anyone who would join them. Maybe Klaus Jr. and Trikolora could become desperate if it doesn't look like they will get over the threshold, but I doubt it, especially as they have exchanged a few tough words in the battle for the right-wing voters.

I don't know if king makers is the right term as there is no doubt which king the party prefers. They will support Babis, and wants the most Eurosceptic and immigration-critical version of a Babis-government. So I think their best case is a ANO government supported by SPD/Communists or SPD/Trikolora. However, it doesn't look likely at the moment, that such a combination will be enough for a majority. And it's still an open question whether ANO's liberal wing, who made the option impossible in 2017, is marginalized enough for that to happen. I also think Babis would prefer several other options, but if the Pirate/Stan coalition and the centre-right alliance continues to shun him, then it could end up as an option. A majority could be more likely with the Social Democrats added, but I think a deal with SPD would be a bridge to far for many in that party as well. The Social Democrats actually looks more like a kingmaker now (if they get in) as I think they could be a part of different majority options.

[Estrella]

Alliances are really in fashion in Czechia this year, and a third one might be on its way. The CSSD is trying to make an agreement with the Green Party. The environmentalists only achieved 1.46% in 2017 and have rarely polled over 2% since. Therefore, an alliance would probably be in danger of missing the 10% threshold, so instead it will probably be Green candidates running on the Social Democrat list if an agreement is reached. The parties had succesful cooperation in two regions in the regional election.

That seems like it will net votes... for the Pirates.

SZ, that's the Greens:



To quote Pelíšky: "And who will that benefit, huh? The other party?"

[Flyersfan232]

Alliances are really in fashion in Czechia this year, and a third one might be on its way. The CSSD is trying to make an agreement with the Green Party. The environmentalists only achieved 1.46% in 2017 and have rarely polled over 2% since. Therefore, an alliance would probably be in danger of missing the 10% threshold, so instead it will probably be Green candidates running on the Social Democrat list if an agreement is reached. The parties had succesful cooperation in two regions in the regional election.

That seems like it will net votes... for the Pirates.

SZ, that's the Greens:



To quote Pelíšky: "And who will that benefit, huh? The other party?"

what are pirates political and could we see something like them in the states?

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Alliances are really in fashion in Czechia this year, and a third one might be on its way. The CSSD is trying to make an agreement with the Green Party. The environmentalists only achieved 1.46% in 2017 and have rarely polled over 2% since. Therefore, an alliance would probably be in danger of missing the 10% threshold, so instead it will probably be Green candidates running on the Social Democrat list if an agreement is reached. The parties had succesful cooperation in two regions in the regional election.

That seems like it will net votes... for the Pirates.

SZ, that's the Greens:

snip

To quote Pelíšky: "And who will that benefit, huh? The other party?"

I meant more that I didn't think what was left of the SZ was particularly Social Democrat-inclined.

[Diouf]

The Green - Social Democrat negotiations about a potential cooperation is currently visible in the headlines. The Green Party has stated its willingness to enter into negotiations, but it states as a condition that such a cooperation must work to end "the oligarchic afflictance of political and economic power and authoritarian style of governance" which means a promise to not work with ANO, KSCM and SPD. The Social Democrat answer so far is probably not fully convincing to them as Jan Hamacek said that the party will commit to not working with ANO if ANO wants them to cooperate in a majority with ODS. Apparently a potential ANO-ODS cooperation is the danger the CSSD is now warning against after a significant tax cut was voted through just before Christmas with the votes of ANO, ODS, SPD + independents (incl. Trikolora ofc). ODS leader Petr Fiala has completely rejected this idea, and called it as realistic as a alien attack or a riot by domestic cats; he says the real threat is the continuation of Babis' populist-Bolshevik coalition. A coalition which CSSD has taken part in, and broken all promises to voters about, he said.

So it seems like CSSD is a bit torn. It would really like the support of a few extra % of voters to ensure it will pass the 5% threshold, but it's also wary to give up its potential decisive kingmaker role. The CSSD has instead tried to lure the Greens with a climate promise. The government's coal commission has just published its ideas, which includes an end to coal use in 2038. CSSD says that in a coalition it would support abolishing the use of coal by 2033. It will be interesting to see whether the two parties can find each other in a deal.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/PetraGuasti/status/1356925335632281600

[Diouf]

https://twitter.com/PetraGuasti/status/1356925335632281600

Yes, the Court abolished the cumulation rule, which meant a coalition of two parties would need 10% instead of 5% and so on. So this could make coalitions more common, especially with minor parties, so for example Social Democrats and Greens could make a coalition instead of running Green candidates on the CSSD list. Also the court ruled that the combination of D'Hondt and some small electoral regions (the smallest Karlovy Vary has 5 seats) means smaller parties are discriminated against as they need many more votes per seat nationwide. This discrimination is part of why we have seen the opposition unite into coalitions as they would then get closer to ANO in size, and thereby reduce ANO's D'Hondt advantage.

Babis is not very happy. He said that the Constitutional Court is actively trying to influence the political situation, and that it damages the citizen' confidence in politics. He accuses the Court's President, Pavel Rychetsky, for bias against Babis and states that Rychetsky is likely to be STANs candidate for president in 2023. Babis said that a more proportional system will fragment parliament further, and throw the country into political chaos with a new government each year as in Italy.

Minister of Interior, and CSSD leader, Jan Hamacek has called the parties for a meeting on Tuesday. As I understand it, the cumulation threshold is automatically gone, so the parties "only" need to find a solution to the other problem. Hamacek has proposed 4 ideas:
1. That the country will function as one giant constituency.
2. Merging some of the 14 regional constituencies into larger ones.
3. To replace the D'Hondt method with another formula
4. To keep the 14 regional constituencies, but allocate seats differently. First a national overall allocation, and then ditributing them to parties per region.

I think the latter clearly sounds like the best idea. In that way you can keep the same constituencies, which are equal to the regions, and therefore keep a regional connection of the representatives. If they need inspiration, they could look at the Danish system. Here 75% of the seats are distributed with D'Hondt in each constituency. The the parties' nationwide share of seats are calculated with the largest remainder method. The last 25% of seats are then distributed to the parties in the regions, so that the parties reach their deserved national seat share.

[Diouf]

At the same time, KSCM is making noises about removing their support for Babis' government, although it's hard to gather how serious the threats are. The latest announcement is that the communist executive committee will meet on Friday to decide whether to remove their support. They have a number of complaints. They said they only agreed to extend the covid state of emergency until 14 February because it was promised that children would return to school on 1 February and ski resorts could open from 29 January. This hasn't happened, and instead restrictions have been tightened again. Another complaint is that the government has cheated in in terms of agreed reductions in the military budget. In last year's budget, the communists won a concession of a 10 billion CZK reduction. However, with a technical measure, the government has moved 5 billion back to the military from other programs. Finally, they say that the government needs to speed up to fulfill the last of the promises made to KSCM when the government was formed, the enactment of 5 weeks of leave for all employees and merging the health insurance providers.

With the election planned in October and the way the parliamentary seats are distributed, I kind of a doubt a new government would be formed before election anyway. So removing tolerance of the government would mostly be a symbolic gesture. I'm not sure how good of a look it is to remove confidence in the government based on covid restrictions. I haven't seen specific polling, but in most countries there still seem to be clear majorities in favour of draconian covid restrictions, especially among the older voters, who make up KSCM's base. And it's not like their polling figures are great to begin with.

[Diouf]

The communists ended up not making a decision on the tolerance agreement, and instead decided to continue negotiations with the government. It also restated its opposition to extend the state of emergency.