Czech Politics: Fiala government

[Flyersfan232]

What’s are the pirates key to government?

[Diouf]

What’s are the pirates key to government?

Generally, I would expect their biggest chance to be a combined majority for Pirate/Stan + the Spolu alliance. If CSSD ends up with the decisive seats, there could still be a decent chance of a not-Babis coalition. If results are more favourable for ANO, but not to the extend where the governing majority can/want to continue, then ANO will probably again try to lure parties to join them, including the Pirates. But so far the idea of Babis in charge have been enough for both the Pirates and the other opposition parties to decline.

[njwes]

Speaking of the Pirates, very happy to see that Bartoš is still rocking the Eurotrash white-guy cornrows.



Though much more restrained from the glory of the last general election

[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?

bringing this up against since no body reply

[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?"

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

bringing this up against since no body reply

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party
2. No

[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?

bringing this up against since no body reply

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party
2. No

why for number 2?

[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?"

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

bringing this up against since no body reply

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party
2. No

why for number 2?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

[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?

bringing this up against since no body reply

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party
2. No

why for number 2?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

Was talking in the sense of the ideology

[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?"

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

bringing this up against since no body reply

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party
2. No

why for number 2?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

Was talking in the sense of the ideology

This is the kind of movement that succeeds when there is a significant number of voters disillusioned with all main parties and they're willing to try something new. In American, the massive increase in polarization in the past decade means that voters have become more, shall we say, conservative in choosing their ideologies: they only go deeper into their side of politics, left or right. If some founded a Pirate Movement in the US - a grouping of anti-system progressives, more or less - and it managed to attract enough members to become relevant, it would quickly split between the anti-system people (GOP) and progressive people (Dems).

You could say that Andrew Yang is trying to create something like this, but running for Mayor of NYC means getting lost in the nitty-gritty of running a huge metropolis, and a catastrophically managed one at that. He'll have no time for some big new ideological project.

[PSOL]

The demographics of the Pirates—young, middle class urbanite men—seem much more economically conservative then the official platform of the Pirate Party though

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

My impression - and I could be very off-base - is that at least Bartoš is to the left of many Pirate voters in practice, but papers over the gap with aesthetics, and at least for now, it works.

[Estrella]

My impression - and I could be very off-base - is that at least Bartoš is to the left of many Pirate voters in practice, but papers over the gap with aesthetics, and at least for now, it works.

IMO there's a significant sociological overlap (not saying all of their voters are like that, but still) between Pirate voters and the sort of people who vote for Korwin in Poland.

_{"Anti-system progressives" was a really stupid way to put it because then someone like Beppe Grillo would be a progressive. Yuck.}

[crals]

The demographics of the Pirates—young, middle class urbanite men—seem much more economically conservative then the official platform of the Pirate Party though

Where do they fall economically? I would expect a Pirate party to be fairly Liberal, in the European sense.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

My impression - and I could be very off-base - is that at least Bartoš is to the left of many Pirate voters in practice, but papers over the gap with aesthetics, and at least for now, it works.

IMO there's a significant sociological overlap (not saying all of their voters are like that, but still) between Pirate voters and the sort of people who vote for Korwin in Poland.

_{"Anti-system progressives" was a really stupid way to put it because then someone like Beppe Grillo would be a progressive. Yuck.}

Yes, if the Czech girl from a rich family who once cornered me at a party to talk, at length, about her disappointment that an ANO-ODS-Pirate coalition wouldn't happen and described herself as a libertarian is any indication, that would be about right, lol.

[Estrella]

My impression - and I could be very off-base - is that at least Bartoš is to the left of many Pirate voters in practice, but papers over the gap with aesthetics, and at least for now, it works.

IMO there's a significant sociological overlap (not saying all of their voters are like that, but still) between Pirate voters and the sort of people who vote for Korwin in Poland.

_{"Anti-system progressives" was a really stupid way to put it because then someone like Beppe Grillo would be a progressive. Yuck.}

Yes, if the Czech girl from a rich family who once cornered me at a party to talk, at length, about her disappointment that an ANO-ODS-Pirate coalition wouldn't happen and described herself as a libertarian is any indication, that would be about right, lol.

what parties do you go to and can you take me there

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

My impression - and I could be very off-base - is that at least Bartoš is to the left of many Pirate voters in practice, but papers over the gap with aesthetics, and at least for now, it works.

IMO there's a significant sociological overlap (not saying all of their voters are like that, but still) between Pirate voters and the sort of people who vote for Korwin in Poland.

_{"Anti-system progressives" was a really stupid way to put it because then someone like Beppe Grillo would be a progressive. Yuck.}

Yes, if the Czech girl from a rich family who once cornered me at a party to talk, at length, about her disappointment that an ANO-ODS-Pirate coalition wouldn't happen and described herself as a libertarian is any indication, that would be about right, lol.

what parties do you go to and can you take me there

Law students are freaks, man.

[Flyersfan232]

What is this I am here about the courts declaring the electoral system illegal?

[Astatine]

What is this I am here about the courts declaring the electoral system illegal?

The electoral system was declared unconstitutional for mainly 2 reasons:
1.) It favors large parties. When a party crosses the 5 percent threshold, its seats get allocated with the D'Hondt method (that naturally favors large parties) and on a regional basis (and as some regions just have very few seats to distribute, smaller parties are getting an additional disadvantage). Extreme example: The Green Party received about 6 % of the vote in 2006, but as its voter basis came largely from the capital region of Prague and their vote share in other regions was too small to get seats there, they happened to end up with 3 % of the seats (6/200).
2.) Electoral coalitions made of several parties are disadvantaged since they have to take a higher threshold (10 % for a coalition of 2 parties, 15 % for coalitions of 3 parties etc.).

[Flyersfan232]

What is this I am here about the courts declaring the electoral system illegal?

The electoral system was declared unconstitutional for mainly 2 reasons:
1.) It favors large parties. When a party crosses the 5 percent threshold, its seats get allocated with the D'Hondt method (that naturally favors large parties) and on a regional basis (and as some regions just have very few seats to distribute, smaller parties are getting an additional disadvantage). Extreme example: The Green Party received about 6 % of the vote in 2006, but as its voter basis came largely from the capital region of Prague and their vote share in other regions was too small to get seats there, they happened to end up with 3 % of the seats (6/200).
2.) Electoral coalitions made of several parties are disadvantaged since they have to take a higher threshold (10 % for a coalition of 2 parties, 15 % for coalitions of 3 parties etc.).

so what will replace it? nation wide list?

[Diouf]

Trikolora has formed an electoral coalition with two other small right-wing parties, Svobodni and Soukromníci. Svobodni had their highlight in 2014, when party leader Petr Mach was elected to the European Parliament when the party won 5.24%. Since then the party's fortunes have declined significantly; receiving only 1.56% in the 2017 national election and 0.65% in the 2019 European elections. Soukromníci is mostly associated with the gambling magnate Ivo Valenta, who was elected senator for the party in 2014, but lost re-election in 2020. In 2017, their candidates ran on the ODS list without getting elected. Klaus Jr. said he was happy to unite three parties who believe in democracy, capitalism and the nation state as an alternative to the current left-wing and anti-nationalist direction of Czech politics. The alliance will likely help Trikolora with a couple of decimal points. In most recent polls, they have been between 2.5 - 3.5 %, so they need a boost if they are to make it up over the 5% threshold.

CSSD and the Greens are in negotiations about an alliance. They expect to reach a deal towards the end of March, so that it can be voted on at the CSSD congress in April and afterwards in the Green Party Council.

[Diouf]

Klaus Jr. has announced that he is retiring as Trikolora leader, and won't be running at the general election. He said the decision was made for mainly personal reasons, saying he did not have the energy to continue in politics. However, his lack of energy could also have been affected by Trikolora being stuck well below the 5% threshold in most polling. Just a few days before, daddy Klaus publicly stated his hope for a Trikolora-SPD alliance. Predictably, Okamura did not see this as a very good idea, and now it seems likely that Trikolora will lose most of the little support it has, which will probably mainly go to Okamura. And after being stuck in the middle-high single digits for most of the term, SPD is now regularly polling at 10% or above, so a better result than the 10.6% in 2017 could be on the cards.

There seems to be agreement on a new electoral system after the Constitutional Court's verdict. I haven't seen the final compromise text yet, but from what i can see it will be in this way:
The threshold will stay at 5% for single parties, 8% for a 2-party coalition and 11% for a coalition with more than two parties. So there will still be higher threshold for coalitions, but lower than the 10% and 15% threshold struck down by the court.
In terms of the distribution of the seats, it will now be a two-tier process with compensatory seats instead of the previous system, where seats were only distributed on the regional level. In the new system, the Imperiali quota (votes for parties above threshold/number of seats + 2) will be calculated for each region. Then parties will get seats according to how many times, they pass the quota. So with 90.000 votes, and a 20.000 quota, it would be 4 seats. After this first distribution, there will be some seats undistributed (around 30 of 200 expected). Nationally, the distribution of these seats will be calculated based on a nationwide quota (surplus votes from the regional distribution for all parties above threshold/number of seats left + 1). If the seat distribution via quota does not match the exact number of seats to give, then the parties closest to an extra seat via quota will get the seat (or the other way around if too many seats are distributed). There was then quite some debate about how these compensatory seats should be distributed on the regional level. Committee leader Benda from ODS thought it a super idea to allow the parties themselves to decide in which regions they wanted their compensatory seats, but luckily a sane majority in parliament decided that these seats are distributed automatically, taking into account a party's votes and seats in each region + the number of seats left in each region.
It is still semi-closed lists. You can break the list from a lower position if you get at least 5% of the party's votes.
To me it seems like a really great outcome. The two-tier process and the quota distribution should give a more fair distribution of seats on the national level, like the court mandated. I would prefer completely open party lists, but you can't get the perfect system.

Polling is starting to show Pirati/Stan equal to or even ahead of ANO, and an anti-Babis majority is looking quite likely.

[Diouf]

I tried to do a calculation of the new system with the 2017 results.
I get the following numbers:

ANO 69 (-9)
ODS 24 (-1)
Pirati 24 (+2)
SPD 23 (+1)
KSCM 16 (+1)
CSSD 15 (=)
KDU-CSL 11 (+1)
TOP09 9 (+2)
STAN 9 (+3)

As expected, smaller parties benefit while bigger parties lose. The new system will also advantage those parties who will have been just below the old regional seat threshold in many places; often because many votes have been received in one or two regions. The governing majority would just lose its majority with this system (100 seats out of 200).

[Diouf]

Jan Hamacek re-elected as CSSD leader with the votes of 140 of the 270 delegates. His biggest rival Tomáš Petříček won support from 95 delegates, while ex-minister Katarina Valachova won 23 delegates with her late candidature. The divisions in the values of the Hamacek and Petricek-wings of the party was laid bare in the speeches, as Hamacek accused Petricek of attracting plenty of support on Twitter and in the Respekt (left-liberal news magazine) newsroom, but all that support is from people who will never vote CSSD. Under Petricek, the party would turn into an orange TOP09 without much popular support, he stated. Both Petricek and Valachova indicated that they would leave the Babis government, and attacked Hamacek for the poor election results in 2019 and 2020. Petricek said the party had to take a stand against Babis, and cannot be a vague party for everyone, and would be overshadowed by ANO in that role.
It sounds like Petricek could already be on the way out as Foreign Minister, something Zeman in particular will enjoy. His replacement is likely Lubomír Zaorálek, who held the position from 2013-2017, and is currently Minister of Culture.

Hamacek's victory probably makes a deal with the Greens less of a match, as they seem to continue to demand a promise to not cooperate with ANO after an election. And are making a lot of noise about ditching the Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal Project. With the new electoral law and a 8% threshold for two-party coalitions, it seems clear that any cooperation would have to be simply Green candidates running on the CSSD list. Both parties are electorally challenged, which explains the effort put into the negotiations, but I think the Greens are to make a climbdown if it's to happen. Hamacek will not give many concessions to the Green Twitter-users and Respekt-readers.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Jan Hamacek re-elected as CSSD leader with the votes of 140 of the 270 delegates. His biggest rival Tomáš Petříček won support from 95 delegates, while ex-minister Katarina Valachova won 23 delegates with her late candidature. The divisions in the values of the Hamacek and Petricek-wings of the party was laid bare in the speeches, as Hamacek accused Petricek of attracting plenty of support on Twitter and in the Respekt (left-liberal news magazine) newsroom, but all that support is from people who will never vote CSSD. Under Petricek, the party would turn into an orange TOP09 without much popular support, he stated. Both Petricek and Valachova indicated that they would leave the Babis government, and attacked Hamacek for the poor election results in 2019 and 2020. Petricek said the party had to take a stand against Babis, and cannot be a vague party for everyone, and would be overshadowed by ANO in that role.
It sounds like Petricek could already be on the way out as Foreign Minister, something Zeman in particular will enjoy. His replacement is likely Lubomír Zaorálek, who held the position from 2013-2017, and is currently Minister of Culture.

Hamacek's victory probably makes a deal with the Greens less of a match, as they seem to continue to demand a promise to not cooperate with ANO after an election. And are making a lot of noise about ditching the Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal Project. With the new electoral law and a 8% threshold for two-party coalitions, it seems clear that any cooperation would have to be simply Green candidates running on the CSSD list. Both parties are electorally challenged, which explains the effort put into the negotiations, but I think the Greens are to make a climbdown if it's to happen. Hamacek will not give many concessions to the Green Twitter-users and Respekt-readers.

I'm guessing this is a stupid question, but did any of the candidates set out even the vaguest policy direction?

[Diouf]

I'm guessing this is a stupid question, but did any of the candidates set out even the vaguest policy direction?

I think the party as a whole have quite a lot of concrete economic proposals. The final election programme will be adopted in these days, but it sound like it will include at least:
- Bank tax
- Tax on digital firms
- A shorter working week
- Five weeks of holiday for all employees
- Autotomatic indexation of minimum wage
- Heavy investments in incresing health services in rural areas
- Nationalise the water management
- Enforce equal salary and pensions for women

I think they are both in favour of most of this, and then the difference is in emphasis and other areas. Petricek is closer to the Greens on energy, while Hamacek focuses on nuclear and a slower phase-out of fossil fuels. Petricek wants more EU-integration, Hamacek is more reluctant. Petricek is more anti-Babis, while Hamacek and his right-hand Onderka focuses criticism on corporations and rich ("Banks and large corporations share their astronomical profits fairly. Not only the young and successful live in the Czech Republic. Social democracy must also think of others. Our core voters are employees".)