No Clear Leader Emerges From Czech Vote

The Social Democrats placed first Saturday in Czech parliamentary elections but appeared poorly positioned to form the next government, leaving conservative parties celebrating the results.

“One cannot say the left has won, and this is a reason for enormous joy for me and for many other people,” declared former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, the dominant figure of the Czech right. “The turn to the left didn’t materialize. . . . This is a good reason to open champagne at home this evening.”

The character of the next government remains undetermined, however. With five parties winning places in Parliament, it could take weeks of political maneuvering before a new ruling coalition is formed to replace the current caretaker government, which has been in office since a center-right coalition led by Klaus fell apart last year.

As head of the biggest party in Parliament, Social Democratic leader Milos Zeman will probably be offered the opportunity to try to form the next government.

Under the Czech Constitution, President Vaclav Havel decides who makes the first attempt to form a government--and if that fails, who gets to try next.

If Zeman succeeds in putting together a coalition government that can win majority support in Parliament, it would be the first shift to a left-of-center government since the collapse of communism here in 1989.

But there is no obvious set of coalition partners that can give a majority in the 200-seat Parliament to a government led by the Social Democrats, who appeared to have won 74 seats.

The Christian Democrats, with an expected 19 seats, have expressed willingness to work with the Social Democrats. But a third party that had been expected to round out a possible left-leaning majority, the Pensioners for Secure Living, failed to exceed the 5% threshold required for parliamentary representation.

“I would find it paradoxical if a party wins the election and has the biggest mandate in Parliament and is not part of the government,” Zeman said.

But he acknowledged in a television appearance that if he cannot form a majority coalition, Klaus could be expected to get the next try.

A key surprise in the election was the failure of the ultranationalist Republican Party to crack the 5% barrier for winning seats. It took 3.9%, while polls had predicted that it would win about 6%.

Across the rest of the political spectrum, the Republican failure was welcomed as boding well for the consolidation of a more mature democracy here.

The Republican leader, Miroslav Sladek, “traveled all around the country, he held an enormous number of meetings, and usually the [town] square was full,” said Vlasta Stepova, a Social Democratic Party official and member of Parliament. “If you judged from that, you thought surely they’d be in the Parliament. So their not getting in is very symbolic. People are not ready to just listen to empty speeches and strong sentences.”

Michal Lobkowicz, a Union of Freedom member who is minister of defense in the current caretaker government, said the failure of both the Republicans and the Pensioners to win representation is “a positive result because it means extremists are not getting into Parliament and a one-dimensional party based on one issue--pensions--is not getting in.”

The Republican failure to win any seats boosts the possibility that mainstream center-right parties might put together a majority coalition if the Social Democrats cannot.

It appeared Saturday that a bare majority of 101 seats could be commanded by a center-right coalition of Klaus’ Civic Democrats, which took 64 seats to place second; the Union of Freedom, with 18 seats; and the Christian Democrats, seen as a swing party that could lean either left or right.

Klaus was clearly hoping Saturday for such a coalition, which might return him to the prime minister’s office.

But personal animosity between party leaders--especially open dislike of Klaus shown by Christian Democratic leader Josef Lux--means that a center-right coalition also cannot be easily hammered together.

Lux has stressed that he prefers a coalition of the Social Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Union of Freedom--which could command a solid majority of 111 seats. But Union of Freedom head Jan Ruml has insisted that he will not join the Social Democrats in a coalition.

“I don’t think it is even worth considering, because we are, considering the programs, such a different party that we couldn’t be in a coalition with the Social Democrats,” Ruml said.

Final results, including official tallies of seats won, will not be known until today or Monday.

With votes counted from more than 99% of districts, the Social Democrats had 32%, Civic Democrats 28%, Communists 11%, Christian Democrats 9% and Union of Freedom 8.6%.

Czech television Saturday projected seats won based on those percentage results.