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The three centre and centre-right parties in the lower house signed a declaration Wednesday over their intent to form a coalition government. The announcement followed the first three- way meeting between them. Up till now there have only been two-way talks between the Civic Democrats, TOP 09 and Public Affairs.

Civic Democrat leader Petr Nečas said it could take a month, at a maximum two, for a final coalition deal to be sealed. Seven separate negotiating teams have been formed to try and thrash out a common line on various policies. Mr. Nečas has been summoned to report to President Václav Klaus on Thursday, fuelling speculation that he might then be tasked to form a government.

The latest steps follow the first appearance of cracks in the coalition project on Tuesday when the leader of the Public Affairs party, Radek John, warned that his party might not join a coalition with the Civic Democrats and TOP 09. He said it might only give it support in parliament if its specific demands were not met. The junior party in the possible coalition has highlighted its demands to combat corruption and tax and health reform as potential sticking points in a deal. John underlined that his party’s programme was much wider than just cutting the public debt.

The problematic talks are being closely followed by the winner of the elections and biggest party in the lower house, the Social Democrats. They are especially interested in whether Public Affairs will be a full member of a coalition or just give its backing in parliament. Public Affairs leader, Radek John, has ruled out coalition talks with the Social Democrats even though he admits on some issues, such as health reform, they have more in common than with right-wing parties. Social Democrat leader Bohuslav Sobotka is sticking by the party’s demand that it is offered a first shot at forming a government by President Václav Klaus. But the head of the president’s political office has indicated that he will might not invite anyone to form a government at this stage and just wait for the first workable government project to be placed

Deputy leader of the TOP 09 party, Miroslav Kalousek, described the scenario of a minority right-wing coalition with parliamentary support from the Public Affairs party as unfortunate. He told Czech Radio that time was pressing for the parties to agree a deal and pointed to the end of September deadline for agreeing a budget for 2011. Both TOP 09 and the Civic Democrats would like to push through more ambitious cuts in the public deficit than initially outlined by the current caretaker government.

In the Czech general elections, voters shook up the political scene by turning away from the major parties and supporting newcomers. But the change did not stop there: in a new phenomenon of Czech politics, thousands of preferential votes sent many of the old, familiar faces in the lower house home, to be replaced by outsiders from the bottom of party’s ballots.

Following the weekend general elections, Czech right-wing parties are scrambling to capitalize on their gains and reach agreement on a coalition government of fiscal responsibility. Although there is general agreement on the direction the country should take, Monday’s talks indicated that creating a centre-right coalition will be far from easy.

President Václav Klaus said on Monday that currently, he considers a three-party coalition of the Civic Democrats, TOP 09 and Public Affairs the only viable option for a government coalition. He added that he was not yet ready to announce which party would get the first chance to put together a government. The president’s statement followed talks about the formation of the next government which he held throughout the day with the leaders of all five parties that made it into the lower house.

Ahead of the Czech general elections, the Prague-based American Chamber of Commerce, or Amcham, came up with an initiative to curb corruption and to reform Czech public procurement legislation. The main Czech political parties welcomed the initiative and committed to implementing the proposed reform in Parliament. On Monday, with negotiations about the new government in full swing, Radio Prague spoke to Amcham’s executive director Weston Stacey, and asked him whether he thought corruption had been an important issue for Czech voters.

One of the winners of these elections and a newcomer to Parliament, the Public Affairs party, clearly owes its success to its leader Radek John, a former TV journalist who is a household name in the Czech Republic. His investigative programme on commercial TV NOVA focused on uncovering corruption, something the party has promised to do in top politics as well. However, aside from its self-proclaimed role of watchdog, the party’s background and ambitions remain unclear even to its potential coalition partners. I spoke to political analyst Vladimíra

In the final weeks ahead of the election, polling agencies in the country repeatedly predicted a major win for Jiří Paroubek’s Social Democrats but the reality at the weekend was different. The Social Democrats did come first, but only barely, far from the overwhelming success they had expected. Within hours of the polls closing, it became clear that the party had a marginal chance of forming the next government and that instead the country was now headed for a centre-right coalition promising wide-reaching reforms.

Social Democrats gain most votes but centre and centre-right parties get majority of seats in lower house. The final elections results gave the left of centre Social Democrats most votes with 22.08 percent followed by the Civic Democrats on 20.22 percent, according to the Czech Statistical Office. The recently created TOP 09 party was third with 16.7 percent followed by the Communists with 11.27 percent and the Public Affairs party with 10.88 percent. The Christian Democrats and the party of former Social Democrat prime minister Miloš Zeman were both just under the 5.0 percent threshold to entry to the lower house with around 4.5 percent. The turnout was 62.6 percent.

These figures translate into 56 seats in the 200-seat lower house for the Social Democrats. The Civic Democrats would gain 53 seats, TOP 09 41 seats, the Communists 26 seats and Public Affairs 24 seats. The Social Democrats won most votes in most regions of the country apart from the Liberec, Hradec Králové, Southern Bohemia and Central Czech regions won by the Civic Democrats. TOP 09 was the most popular party in the former Civic Democrat bastion, Prague, with around 27 percent of support.