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Instant View: Centre-right lead in Czech parliamentary vote

30 May 2010 02:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Center-right parties led in a Czech election on Saturday that pitted leftist pledges of protecting people from crisis against warnings from the right that the left will lead the country to bankruptcy, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
The following are comments by party officials and political analysts.
JIRI PAROUBEK, LEADER, SOCIAL DEMOCRATS (CSSD)
"It seems that people have chosen the direction the republic should go in, and it is a different direction than the one the Social Democrats were offering."
PETR NECAS, LEADER, CIVIC DEMOCRATS (ODS)
"Of course, if the current trend is confirmed the election result would enable a good dialogue between the center-right parties to create a government of budget responsibility... then it would be good news for the Czech Republic."
"I am clearly convinced that the customary right should prevail that the leader of the strongest party in the coalition accepts this responsibility (to lead the government)."
PRESIDENT VACLAV KLAUS, AS CITED BY CTK NEWS AGENCY
"It was clear that these elections will mean an essential weakening of the two standard political parties."
"The results are not completely surprising, showing that the polls generally suggested the basic standing and it seems this will be the final result as well, but they could be decided by a small margin. I’ll wait until the evening."
TOMAS LEBEDA, POLITICAL ANALYST
"If you calculate the mandates, it shows the result will be tight again as ODS (Civic Democrats) and TOP 09 will have 98 seats and for forming coalition they would need Public Affairs which are totally inscrutable."
"If Public Affairs made a coalition with the Social Democrats, and let Communists back them... they would have 102 seats, according to the model. But I think it can still change."
"There is no guarantee that John will be willing to create a coalition with rightist parties."
"The party has a number of voters that are close to the Social Democrats, there are voters coming from the left to the right."
DANIEL HEWITT, ECONOMIST AT BARCLAY’S CAPITAL
"With the center right taking over the ODS will hopefully lead a path toward fiscal prudence. They seem pretty committed to trying to bring the deficit down. If they have a stable government they will feel free to move through with those plans, which likely mean expenditure reductions rather than tax increases."
"I think this will be crown positive. I think the exchange rate will continue to appreciate."
PAVEL SOBISEK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, UNICREDIT, PRAGUE
"An important factor is that the Christian Democrats will fail to break the 5 percent threshold (to get into parliament). So there will be again just five parties in Parliament."
"What is surprising and not in line with pre-election polls is that TOP 09 will be the third strongest party, which is important because given how the mandates are calculated it means the two leftist parties may not reach a majority."
"It seems to me CSSD will win by a small margin but the question is what it can offer to potential coalition partners. I don’t think it (can offer) much."
"With some good probability we can rule out the most problematic option (for market) which was a Social Democrat-Communist majority. So if that’s right there should be some relief in the market on Monday morning. But a question is how much such an option was built into the market.
PETR NECAS, ELECTION LEADER, CIVIC DEMOCRATS
"If (the results) are confirmed, it would mean big chance for creating a coalition of fiscal responsibility, a coalition this country needs in these hard times, a coalition we are ready for."
JAN ZAHRADIL, MEMBER OF EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, CIVIC DEMOCRATS (ODS)
"This is very interesting result, which opens a whole range of possibilities, let’s wait to see what the voters gave us."
"For ODS, a success would be the formation of the government of budget responsibility, a government which prevents the Czech Republic to fall into the deficit trap."
RADEK JOHN, PARTY LEADER, PUBLIC AFFAIRS (VV)
"It was a vote against big parties and a referendum against (Social Democrat leader Jiri) Paroubek. We hoped that the result would be double digit, more than 20 MPs, that is strong."
BOHUSLAV SOBOTKA, VICE-CHAIRMAN, SOCIAL DEMOCRATS (CSSD)
"We must wait for the real numbers, at the moment we are working with estimates only."
"If the numbers were valid than it is not particularly cheerful, but at the moment we must wait for the real numbers and I am convinced that the Social Democrats can arise from these elections as the real winner."
PAVEL SARADIN, POLITICAL ANALYST
"It is only an estimate and as it turned out four years ago, it was highly overestimated.
"This only confirms some tendencies from past weeks, which means a shift from the big parties to some of the smaller ones."
"If the final result was like these estimates, then the center and rightist parties are on their course to taking power."
MILAN ZNOJ, POLITICAL ANALYST
"If the results are like this, it would be a shock to the political scene. It would be a big victory for the right and a defeat for the left, mainly the Social Democrats."
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