Czechia - A regular election for the Chamber of Deputies, the lower chamber of the Czech Parliament, was held on October 8–9. The results are interesting for several reasons. The Prime Minister´s movement lost its dominance, being defeated by a right-wing opposition coalition. The difference between these two actors was the narrowest ever (0.67 per cent). Traditional left-wing parties – the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party – suffered a crushing defeat, gaining no mandates for the first time in history. Besides this the Pirate Party, which was expected to take the office of Prime Minister a few months ago, lost 18 seats. The election was also atypical for its relatively high voter turnout (the highest since 1998) and for having the largest number of votes for the losing candidates. Altogether, virtually 48 per cent of citizens did not win the political representative of their choosing.
The October parliamentary election has brought several unexpected results and unprecedented phenomena. Despite recent predictions, the opposition succeeded, gaining a majority of seats in the lower chamber.[1] The difference between the former so-called democratic opposition and the Prime Minister's ANO movement, which has been a hegemonic political force in recent years, is big. The 2021 election will therefore probably result in a completely different government coalition. This will also be the case because the two other left-wing parties that were either de iure or de facto members of the ruling coalition between 2017 and 2021 failed, and lost all their mandates in the Chamber of Deputies.
Shortcomings of the electoral system
The lower chamber is going to be composed of four actors: the ANO movement (72 seats), the SPOLU (71 seats), the PirSTAN (37 seats), and the SPD (20 seats). At first glance, it may seem a more transparent, constructive, and stable composition, since only four actors have won mandates. Certainly, it would be a positive move forward, as the Chamber of Deputies thus far has suffered from excessive fragmentation, undermining the stability of governance. It is typical of the Czech system that the government is formed by at least three actors,which hardly makes effective governance possible. Compromises have become the essential feature and conditio sine qua non of political life, leading to the public's long-term dissatisfaction as well as that of the politicians themselves. The point is that no party is able to fulfil its programme, because they are forced to make substantial concessions to other political actors needed for the very establishment of the government. This reasoning is not aimed against the democratic or parliamentary system, but to shed light on one of the most serious problems of Czech post-socialist politics. There are tools and methods for making the system more stable and beneficial for the people, as in for instance weakening the electoral system’s proportional representation principle in favour of plurality voting.
| Subject | Votes | Percentage | Seats |
| SPOLU | 1.493.905 | 27.79% | 71 |
| ANO | 1.458.140 | 27.12% | 72 |
| PirSTAN | 839.776 | 15.62% | 37 |
| SPD | 513.910 | 9.56% | 20 |
Table 1: Results of the election - Source: Czech Statistical Office, volby.cz
Creating coalitions
Such considerations could find positive responses among the public, as indicated by recent developments and electoral behaviour. An unexpected number of voters supported the SPOLU (which means „Together“). It is not a single party but a coalition made up of three individual parties: the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People´s Party (KDU-ČSL), and TOP 09. The grouping is a centre-right, liberal formation with some conservative characteristics, and is explicitly Western-oriented. They succeeded in particular because their political representatives had managed to unite, thus overcoming the above-mentioned fragmentation. An analogous tactic was adopted by the PirSTAN, another coalition constituted by the Pirate Party and the Mayors and Independents (STAN), a liberal, progressivist political force with extreme stances in foreign policy. The final synergy of the second coalition is, nevertheless, somewhat doubtful, since the Pirates as the initial leader began to lose support, while the Mayors and Independents were gradually strengthening.[2] This tendency, deepened by a sharp public campaign against the Pirates, who were depicted as new leftist revolutionaries, resulted in a considerable defeat for the Pirate Party. The coalition obtained 37 mandates, but a mere 4 of them were won by the Pirate candidates. This was enabled by the fact that it was possible to choose up to 5 candidates on the electoral list, who were then given priority within the vote-counting process.
The tendency towards forming broader coalitions found echoes among minor parties as well. The sovereigntist, national-conservative, right-wing Tricolour Movement, supported by former President Václav Klaus, agreed on close cooperation with the Free Citizens´ Party and the Freeholder Party. This bloc did not succeed, however, gaining 2.76 per cent of the votes. The question is how the individual members of both coalitions will be cooperating in the lower chamber and a potential government, and whether they will keep the joint organisational structures or tend to merge. The latter would be transparent and beneficial in terms of the long-term development of the Czech political and electoral system. The existence and candidature of dozens of parties or movements belong to the worst maladies of post-1989 political life.
