By Lindsey Berlin, Nancy Ryerson and Michelle Tanaka

Photos by Michelle Tanaka

Wonder what’s behind all those goofy campaign posters? Czechs go to the polls October 15–16 to vote in Senate and local elections.

Two thirds of the 81-seat Senate are up for re-election. Each party presents 27 candidates, one for each senate seat being contested. A senate term is six years. In the senate elections, each voter cast his or her vote for a party and cannot cross party lines in their selection. To win a seat, a party must receive at least 50 percent of the vote in that particular race. This is often not the case, so there are run-off elections two weeks after this weekend’s polls.

Voters are also selecting local, district and city councils. Elections for local governments are more complicated, says Jiří Pehe, political scientist and director of NYU in Prague. While Prague voters tend to vote a straight-party ticket, provincial voters tend to pay more attention to the individual candidates’ personalities, Pehe says.

Pehe expects the center-left Social Democrats will win local races in Moravia, while he says a recent survey indicates the center-right Civic Democrats dominate polls in Prague.

Who’s in the running
Officially, there are more than 30 parties on the ballot. These are the biggest:

Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD)
• Agenda: favors “social market economy” (Keynesianism), though policies don’t necessarily reflect this (i.e. in 2002, oversaw an acceleration of the privatization process)
• Chairman: Bohuslav Sobotka
• Representation in the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of Parliament): 56 (out of 200 possible deputies)
• Representation in the Senate: 25 (out of 81 possible senators)
• Oldest of the existing political parties, though recent years have seen many internal squabbles and unstable divisions
• Supported by: working-class voters, especially in industrial towns; public service employees; trade union members
“• Asserts that all citizens have genuine equal opportunities to achieve higher living standards,” www.cssd.cz (official website)

Civic Democratic Party (ODS)
• Agenda: minimal states intervention and low taxation; reduction of bureaucracy
• Chairman: Petr Nečas
• Representation in Chamber of Deputies: 53
• Representation in Senate: 33
• Considered to be euroskeptics
• Appeals to: middle-class voters and entrepreneurs, with strong support in large cities (Prague and Brno) and among younger voters
• “Its program is based on the principles of personal freedom, individual responsibility, parliamentary democracy and market economy. In its everyday policy, the party lays stress on an entrepreneurial attitude and private ownership,” www.ods.cz/en/party (official website)

Tradition Responsibility Prosperity (TOP 09)
• Supports free market and the EU
• Chairman: Karel Schwarzenberg
• Representation in the Chamber of Deputies: 41
• Representation in Senate: 2
“• Only factual dispute arguments can bring mutual benefit,” www.top09.cz/proc-nas-volit/hodnotove-desatero (official website)

Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM)
• Agenda: Socialist; believes in state control over sections of the economy
• Chairman: Vojtěch Filip
• Representation in the Chamber of Deputies: 26
• Representation in the Senate: 3
• Opposes NATO and the EU (very few other parties will associate or agree to any kind of coalition deal with them)
• Supported by: primarily older people who have had trouble adjusting to life without communism, as well as those in industrial areas with high unemployment. Has a large grass-roots base
• “Its proposals include calls for an appropriate degree of state ownership in key sectors of the economy (banking, transport, telecommunications, energy, the extractive industries etc.) and the development of a modern large-scale agriculture,” http://www.kscm.cz/index.asp?thema=3217&category= (official website)

Public Affairs (VV)
• Agenda: advocates transparency in government and opposes political corruption; fiscally conservative
• Chairman: Radek John
• Representation in the Chamber of Deputies: 24
• Representation in the Senate: 0
• “Public Affairs is a political party that is built on direct democracy based on cooperation with the citizens themselves,” http://www.veciverejne.cz (official website)

Christian Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People’s Party (KDU-ČSL)

• Agenda: family values; conservative on many social issues
• Chairman: Cyril Svoboda
• Representation in the Chamber of Deputies: 0
• Representation in the Senate: 3
• Supported by: mainly people from the traditionally Catholic, rural areas of Moravia; older voters

Party of Civic Rights – Zemanovci (SPO)
• Agenda: believes that the parliamentary system should be adjusted so smaller parties have more say
• Chairman: Miloš Zeman
• Representation in the Chamber of Deputies: 0
• Representation in the Senate: 0
• Submitted a “program of comprehensive proposals… allowing active and confident citizens full of their own choice of political leaders,” http://www.spoz.cz/index.php/program-spo.html (official website)

Green Party (SZ)
• Agenda: regulating environmental activities; reduction of direct taxes; opposed to nuclear energy
• Chairman: Ondřej Liška
• Representation in the Chamber of Deputies: 0
• Representation in the Senate: 0
• Was the subject of a lot of attention in the early 2000s because of internal bickering amongst party members
• “First we want to eradicate corruption, second we want green economy, third we want healthy nature, fourth we want to invest in lasting value,” http://www.zeleni.cz (official website)

Fun Facts
• Almost 40,000 expatriates with permanent residency status (and even some EU citizens with temporary status) are eligible to vote in the Czech Republic municipal elections.
• Rather than receiving a ballot at the polling location, voters receive their ballots in the mail, then bring them to the polls on voting day (although a ballot can be requested at the polling place, in case it didn’t arrive in the mail).
• Because victors must have a clear majority (over 50% of the vote), many candidates/parties have to go through three rounds of elections to determine the winner.
• These current elections have seen the highest number of candidates, with over 200,000 contenders.

What the faculty say

“Local elections around the country, in thousands of municipalities from Prague to the smallest village; plus one third of the Senate. Predictions? Vote will be mostly local, on local issues.” – Václav Bartuška, Czech Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large for Energy Security; NYU professor, European security

“People know their locality. They come into elections with much love and hatred.
There are so many parties, and they even have similar names so you can easily make a mistake when you vote.” – Zdeněk Kirschner, curator; NYU professor, photography

“The voter turnout isn’t great. Usually about 40 to 45 percent of the population votes in the municipal elections, and 20 percent vote for the senate. There will be more of a turnout for the first round of the senate elections because they coincide with the municipal elections. Those parties with disciplined votes have a big turnout. For example, the Communists—their part members are like an army. But the Greens, in contrast, are mostly young people. That’s why they don’t have any representation in the Senate now.

“Having a senate in such a small country is really redundant. The country is artificially divided. There are 14 regions for no real reason. It would be better if we had a house of wise people, rather than politicians, but for that to happen a constitutional amendment would have to be passed by the senate itself. And they’re not going to vote themselves out of office.” Jiří Pehe, political scientist; director, NYU in Prague