Left-wing Social Democrats appear to be winning in Czech parliamentary elections

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Left-wing Social Democrats winning Czech election

PRAGUE — The left-wing Social Democrats eked out a slim victory in the Czech Republic’s parliamentary election Saturday but center-right parties won more votes overall, the country’s election agency reported.

The results indicated the Social Democrats, lead by former Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, will not be able to govern alone and may not even be able to successfully form a new government. That gives smaller parties that cleared the five-percent threshold needed to gain parliamentary representation potential prominence as possible coalition partners.

The Statistics Office said the Social Democrats won 22.1 percent of the vote while their major rival, the conservative Civic Democratic Party, received 20.2 percent.

With more than 99.8 percent of the votes from the nation’s nearly 15,000 polling stations counted, a new conservative party, TOP 09, got 16.7 percent, followed by the Communists with 11.3 percent and another new party, the centrist Public Affairs, with 10.9 percent.

Still, pre-election polls had predicted a much wider margin of victory — about 30 percent — for the Social Democrats.

President Vaclav Klaus was likely to ask Paroubek, chairman of the winning party, to try to form a new government, but with center-right parties winning more votes, his chances were uncertain.

“This cannot be called a success,” Paroubek acknowledged. “This country is on the way toward a right-wing coalition.”

The Communists are expected to give tacit support to a minority Social Democratic government. But the other parties have ruled out cooperating with Paroubek’s party, citing what they called his irresponsible populist promises, including an extra payments to pensioners and an end to fees for doctors’ visits.

The Social Democrats want to adopt the euro currency in 2015 or 2016, increase corporate taxes from 19 to 21 percent and adopt a new personal tax of 38 percent for those in the highest income bracket.

The country has been run by a caretaker government since a three-party coalition government led by the Civic Democrats lost a no-confidence vote in March 2009, days before President Barack Obama’s visit to Prague and in the middle of the Czech EU presidency.

This has been the longest period without an elected government that the Czech Republic has experienced since the political turmoil that followed the end to communist rule in 1989.

The caretaker Cabinet had no mandate to carry on fundamental reforms and analysts say the country needs a pension overhaul. The Czech economy contracted 4.2 percent last year, and the EU predicts growth of only 1.6 percent this year.

If Paroubek fails to form a government, Petr Necas, the Civic Democrats’ interim chairman, could attempt form a center-right government with TOP 09 and the Public Affairs.

His party opposes tax increases and has no target date for the euro adoption. It also wants to totally eliminate the budget deficit.

The relatively good showing of the smaller parties reflected public dissatisfaction with scandals that have rocked both of the bigger parties.

“We’ve lost our credibility,” said Necas, whose party won the 2006 elections with 35 percent of the vote.

Derogatory comments by Civic Democrats’ former prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, about Jews, gays and the Catholic Church led to his resignation last month as party chairman. Social Democrat Miloslav Vlcek, speaker of the Czech Republic’s lower house, also was forced to resign in April after he admitted lying about a state subsidy for a former aide.

The Christian Democrats and the Greens — who formed a previous government with the Civic Democrats — did poorly Saturday, receiving less than the 5 percent needed to gain seats in parliament, and their leaders announced their resignations.

Associated Press writer George Jahn contributed to this report.