Page 42 - bne_Magazine_July_2017

42 I Central Europe bne July 2017
Czech premier Bohuslav Sobotka speaks during a press conference in Prague, Czech republic, May 2, 2017.
The strange death of Social
Democratic Czechia
By Robert Anderson in Prague
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka’s resignation as Social Democrat leader on June 14 reflects the precipitous decline in CSSD support in opinion polls this year.
The party’s vote has sunk from regu- larly more than 30% in the noughties, to 20% at the 2013 election, to a low of 10-11%, according to recent polls.
It now looks all but certain now that the CSSD will be out of power – or
at least a leading position – after the next election in October. The expected electoral drubbing would be a body blow to the already heavily indebted party because it gets most of its funding from the state according to its vote.
The Czech Republic was once an island of stability and moderation in Central Europe. Now, with growing
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voter volatility and the looming col- lapse of its last strong traditional party, it looks as if will join its neighbours
in embracing populism and picking fights with Brussels, with grave risks for its democracy and European unity.
“We face destruction of the whole
party system,” Jiri Dienstbier, a former Social Democrat human rights minister, told bne IntelliNews earlier this year. “The CSSD is now at breaking point. The next general election will decide wheth- er it will survive as a mainstream party.”
Andrej Babis, the agro-chemicals billionaire who launched his own
Ano party, is poised to seize power
in October, with the open support
of President Milos Zeman, a former Social Democrat and longstanding bitter enemy of Sobotka, whom he has worked ceaselessly to undermine.
Czech society is sleepwalking towards giving Babis the strongest political power since the restoration of democra- cy a quarter of a century ago. Voters are ignoring Sobotka’s warnings of the dan- ger this could pose. “I would hate to see how the power pact between Babis and Zeman, and its extension into the future through the election, would start to turn Czechia into an authoritarian society,” the prime minister said in an inter-
view with the Respekt weekly in May.
Social Democrats have had a leading position in Czech politics for the last 20 years, winning most votes in all but one of the last five elections, and leading governments for more than half that period. The party should by rights have dominated the political scene after the 2013 implosion of its main rival, the rightwing Civic Democrats (ODS), after