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With all of the hullabaloo surrounding the opposing parties and their campaign promises, pledges and other jockeying for support from Czech voters, it's perhaps its easy to forget that free elections are a relatively young phenomenon here. Jiri Dienstbier knows this. He was a dissident under communist rule, during which time he published several underground newspapers and later spent three years in prison with his friend Vaclav Havel.

The Czech Communist party so far appears to have received a smaller percentage of votes cast than they did in the 2002 election - when they won nearly a fifth of the vote. Even so, they are still likely to come out of this year's elections as the country's third strongest party.

Live music, food, champagne. The Civic Democrats are celebrating and they say their victory is clear. They also point to the high voter turnout at 65%, as opposed to 58% in the 2002 elections, as a victory.

When polling stations in the Czech Republic opened on Friday, the country's leading political representatives did not wait long to cast their votes. President Vaclav Klaus and his wife, Livia, voted together at an elementary school in Prague 8.

Who will rule the Czech Republic over the next four years? In recent days political analysts have been speculating on the pros and cons of various coalition scenarios. On Saturday, political analyst Jiri Pehe came to Radio Prague's studio to comment on the outcome of the elections:

According to estimates, some two million people of Czech extraction live outside the Czech Republic. Some 300,000 out of those have Czech citizenship and are therefore entitled to elect deputies to the lower house of the Czech parliament. It was not always the case. Czechs living abroad had their first chance to vote in the previous election four years ago after a law had been passed to that effect. But fewer than 4,000 of them turned up to cast their ballots at the Czech Republic's embassies and consulates around the world. Expectations are similar

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival may attract the most glamour and media attention but it is far from being the only film festival here in the Czech Republic. Indeed, while this year's Karlovy Vary will be the 41st, the Zlin International Film Festival for Children and Youth - which got underway on Sunday - is being held for the 46th time. Coilin O'Connor is in the south Moravian town for the festival. He told me all about it.

Many pundits in the Czech Republic agree that this year's pre-election campaigns were - at least as far as the country's two largest parties were concerned - among the most aggressive in recent memory, the ruling Social Democrats and their opposition rivals the Civic Democrats vying for Czech votes. It is widely expected that one of these parties will form the country's next government. The campaign season was of course not just about those two - or their leaders Jiri Paroubek and Mirek Topolanek. But, in a way it might as well have been.

Less than twenty-four hours before polling stations open for general elections the two strongest parties on the Czech political scene - the ruling Social Democrats and the opposition Civic Democrats - are running a very tight race. Although it is not clear which of them will be first past the post it is almost certain that neither will win enough votes to set up its own majority government. Coalition and consensus is the name of the game on the Czech political scene and political analysts are already debating the pros and cons of various coalition

The Czech Republic is often criticised by the outside world for doing little to improve the living conditions of its Roma minority. It is hard for them to find work, many live in what amount to ghettos with very poor housing conditions, their children often end up in schools for kids with learning disabilities...the list goes on. But with up to 3 percent of the population Romany, why do Roma figure so little in the forthcoming elections? Dita Asiedu looks at the Roma community's political engagement: