ČSSD announces candidates for direct presidential elections

Prague, Feb 18 (CTK) - The Czech senior opposition Social Democratic Party's (CSSD) candidate in the direct presidential election will be unaffiliated liberal economist Jan Svejnar or CSSD deputy head and senator Jiri Dienstbier, party leadership decided today, CSSD chairman Bohuslav Sobotka told CTK.

The CSSD central executive committee will make a definitive choice in May or early June, Sobotka said.

The CSSD will organise a discussion with both candidates in all regions in March and April. Both Svejnar and Dienstbier will attend the debates and the broad public is invited to attend as well.

After assessing the discussion's result, the CSSD leadership will propose its favourite candidate to the central executive committee.

It may happen that the committee will be choosing from among the two candidates, Sobotka said.

He said the party leaders have picked Svejnar, who is not a member of any political party, because he shares values close to the CSSD.

The CSSD supported Svejnar in the last presidential election in 2008, when the president was picked by the two houses of parliament. Svejnar then lost to Vaclav Klaus, who was supported by the right-wing MPs.

The next president will be elected directly by people in early 2013, Czech parliament decided recently.

Sobotka said the other names the leaders pondered on today are Senate chairman Milan Stech, Senate deputy chairwoman Alena Gajduskova and lower house deputy chairman and CSSD deputy head Lubomir Zaoralek.

Of unaffiliated personalities, the meeting also focused on former prime minister Jan Fischer, who, however, is more distanced from the CSSD's values than Svejnar, Sobotka said.

As far as former CSSD chairman and prime minister Milos Zeman is concerned, he is now a candidate of another political party. He will be fielded by the Party of Citizens' Rights of Milos Zeman (SPOZ), Sobotka pointed out.

The CSSD kept the venue of today's meeting secret until the last moment. It turned out that the meeting was held in Hnanice, south Moravia.

The party leadership also discussed the preparation of the regional and Senate elections due this autumn. The CSSD takes the polls for a referendum assessing the centre-right coalition government of Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS), Sobotka said.

The only political party to have officially fielded its presidential candidate so far is the conservative junior government TOP 09, which has nominated its chairman, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.