MfD: Social Democrats collecting signatures for Dienstbier

Prague, Sept 22 (CTK) - Bohuslav Sobotka, leader of the opposition Czech Social Democrats (CSSD), has sent a letter to all 23,000 members of the party in which he asks them to help collect 50,000 for Jiri Dienstbier's presidential candidature, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes Saturday.

Although a presidential candidate can also be nominated by members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, Dienstbier himself has stated that he wants to collect the required signatures, MfD writes.

However, he still does not have them, it adds. Unlike the two leading candidates, former prime ministers Jan Fischer and Milos Zeman, who have declared that they have already collected the signatures and are thus able to seek the presidential post.

Unlike Dienstbier, they are the favorites of the contest.

According to the latest poll, Fischer, former caretaker cabinet head and statistical office director, is supported by 34 percent of Czechs, while Zeman (formerly CSSD, now Party of Citizens' Rights, SPOZ), is supported by 20.5 of them.

Although the Social Democrats are clearly leading in opinion polls, their official candidate Jiri Dienstbier, son of the first post-Communist foreign minister and dissident Jiri Dienstbier, would now only receive 5 percent of votes.

"The result of the election will have a strategic importance for the whole nation and its further course," Sobotka writes in his letter.

"The presidential campaign that has already set into motion and the effort of various interest and financial groups to have their candidates elected as president are strongly influencing the atmosphere before the October elections to the Senate and regional assemblies," he adds.

Sobotka gives an instruction on how to do this, MfD writes.

The party members should print and sign the enclosed sheet with the support for Dienstbier's candidature, to ask family members and friends to sign it and send the petition sheet to the CSSD board before October 12, which means before the autumn elections.

The presidential election will be held early next year. Czech citizens will elect their president directly for the first time. The mandate of outgoing President Vaclav Klaus will expire in March 2013.