LN: ČSSD wins regional elections too easily

Prague, Oct 22 (CTK) - The Czech Social Democrats (opposition CSSD) have clearly won the Senate and regional elections, but their victory was too easy and it may become the start of a long series of defeats, Petr Holub writes in Lidove noviny (LN) daily Monday.

Holub says the ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS) already knows what this is about as they went through such a development where easy success turned into repeated losses.

The Social Democrats won even though one of their regional governors (David Rath) and one deputy regional governor (Pavel Kouda) were arrested over suspected corruption before the elections and the distribution of EU subsidies seems suspicious in other CSSD-ruled regions, too, Holub states.

The CSSD has defended its dominance in nearly all Czech regions and it gained the posts of 13 out of 27 new senators.

This landslide victory means that CSSD leader Bohuslav Sobotka has nominated himself for the next prime minister, Holub writes.

He says Sobotka's election success can be hardly challenged by the view that the Social Democrats won thanks to the votes of people protesting against the government. Moreover, such a view is rather incorrect, he adds.

The elections were decided by people from the country and from housing estates of big towns, where the present right-wing government parties, the ODS and TOP 09, only seldom gained more than 15 percent of the vote, Holub writes.

He says these voters have a clear demand for the left wing to meet: stop the austerity measures that only further worsen our bad standard of living and lower the growing social gaps.

These people, whose loyalty the communist regime had tried to gain through support of farming and the construction of housing estates, feel dissatisfied, Holub writes.

These people are angry that the present rightist government pays attention to them only when it wants to cancel welfare benefits, slow down pension growth, increase payments for heating and running water, and possibly raise the value-added tax, Holub points out.

These people put the Social Democrats and the Communists (KSCM) on the road towards success. The old type of left wing is being revived that seeks the maintaining of the welfare state, Holub writes.

People want to feel socially secure and those who will offer it will win the elections. It is so easy, Holub says.

The Czech left wing has not taken the path of the new leftist parties that function in other European countries and achieve noteworthy success by addressing issues like the environment, freedom of public space and defence of privacy, Holub writes.

It is a question to what extent the CSSD is aware of not being able to meet the expectations of its voters, he says about the situation after the recent elections.

The fate of former Polish prime minister Leszek Miller may be a warning for the Social Democrats, Holub notes.

Miller clearly won the Polish general election in 2001. His Democratic Left Alliance gained 41 percent of the vote, while the former ruling right-wing Civic Platform only 13 percent, Holub recalls.

Even the former senior communist official Miller could easily win in the then Poland, with the unemployment rate of 18 percent, economic recession and a right-wing government pushing through unpopular measures cutting public budgets, he adds.

But Miller disappointed his voters because he maintained the austerity measures. The economy started growing, yet he failed to lower the unemployment rate quickly enough. After less than three years Miller had to leave the prime minister's post, Holub writes.

He says three general elections have been held in Poland since then and the old socialists won maximally 13 percent in them and they have seemed to definitively loose their political influence.

The recent regional and Senate elections indicated that parties with the old left-wing programme may take control of the lower house of Czech parliament in the same easy way. The CSSD and the KSCM are likely to proceed jointly in the future lower house, Holub writes, referring to the current problem-free negotiations on regional alliances of these two parties.

The clearer their future triumph, the higher the risk of their voters soon losing the illusion of the possibility of a socially just state being formed. And when this happens, like in Poland, the Czech voters would not support these leftist parties anymore, Holub concludes.