ČSSD to initiate no-confidence vote over amnesty

Prague, Jan 3 (CTK) - The Czech opposition Social Democrats (CSSD) will initiate a no-confidence vote in the government over the amnesty declared by President Vaclav Klaus and countersigned by Prime Minister Petr Necas, CSSD chairman Bohuslav Sobotka told reporters yesterday.

The CSSD rejects the form and extent of the presidential amnesty.

The amnesty is unacceptable, unjust and outrageous, Sobotka said.

"We consider it scandalous that the amnesty will set free the protagonists of big financial crime cases, including siphoning off banks and firms' assets, privatisation frauds and tax evasion worth billions of crowns," Sobotka said.

It is unbelievable that Necas, chairman of the senior ruling Civic Democrats (ODS), did not refuse to countersign such an amnesty, Sobotka added.

The amnesty provokes the suspicion that it was expediently pushed through to make a clean break with the frauds and cases that had their roots in the privatisation in the 1990s (when Klaus was finance minister and later prime minister), Sobotka pointed out.

A proposal for a vote of no confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, must be submitted by at least 50 deputies.

The CSSD deputy group meets on Tuesday to collect signatures on the proposal.

At least an absolute majority of 101 deputies in the 200-seat lower house is needed to topple the government.

The opposition has initiated a no-confidence vote in the current government of Necas four times in this election term, but the government has survived all attempts.

The government TOP 09 has distanced itself from the amnesty saying its ministers were not informed about it.

Sobotka said TOP 09 could simply leave the government or vote no confidence in it.

Klaus announced the partial amnesty in his New Year's speech on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Czech Republic. It applies to convicts with low suspended or prison sentences, elderly convicts and also suspects whose criminal proceedings have lasted for more than eight years.

More than 7000 out of some 23,000 inmates in Czech prisons will be probably released within it and some of them have already left prisons.

($1=19.023 crowns)