ČSSD rejects merger with left parties, not cooperation

Prague, Feb 6 (CTK) - The Czech senior opposition Social Democratic Party (CSSD) is not planning to merge with other leftist parties, but it does not rule out other ways of cooperation with some of them ahead of the elections, CSSD deputy chairman Michal Hasek said Wednesday.

Speculations about a possible integration of the Czech left started after a meeting of CSSD deputy chairwoman Marie Benesova and president-elect Milos Zeman (Citizens' Rights Party, SPOZ).

Zeman, former CSSD chairman and prime minister, reportedly told Benesova that he would like to play a role in this process.

"The CSSD already had a congress at which it merged with the Communist Party, it was in summer 1948. I don't think we should return to this experience," CSSD chairman Bohuslav Sobotka told journalists Wednesday.

He referred to the merger the Communists forced upon the CSSD after they seized power in Czechoslovakia in a coup in February 1948.

Except for the Communists (KSCM), the other left-wing parties are rather marginal and merging with them is not much meaningful. In most European countries, too, the left wing is pluralist, which is a natural state of things, Sobotka said.

Hasek said no such mergers can be expected in the months to come.

He said he can imagine a different way of the CSSD cooperating with the other leftist entities.

"There is definitely need for a discussion platform within which the left will more coordinate its steps, both in parliament and on the regional and local political levels," Hasek said.

No left or centre-left group should be excluded from this debate, he said, adding that specific forms of cooperation are yet to be discussed in the CSSD.

Hasek said he is not afraid that Zeman, who will be sworn-in as president on March 8, could divide the CSSD. He said he believes that Zeman will not do anything that would cause troubles to the leftist camp.

"The CSSD will be directed from the Lidovy dum (the party's Prague headquarters), not from Prague Castle (the president's seat)," Hasek said.

Zeman fell out with the CSSD after a part of CSSD deputies thwarted his election as president by parliament in 2003. Commentators say he may want to side with his fans in the CSSD, including Benesova and another CSSD deputy chairman, Zdenek Skromach, to retaliate against those who "betrayed" him.