Insider: ODS seeks election leader, wants to push Nečas aside

Prague, Feb 6 (CTK) - The Czech senior ruling Civic Democrats (ODS) are looking for an election leader for the 2014 general polls and want to push party head and PM Petr Necas aside, the Internet daily Insider writes Wednesday, referring to an ODS MP with ties to influential regional party members, as saying.

According to Insider, the leader might be former justice minister and current ODS deputy chairman Jiri Pospisil.

"Petr Necas would be prime minister and party chairman, but the ODS would elect a leader who would be directing the preparations for the elections with which the chairman would not interfere," the MP told the daily.

The party probably wants to carry out its plan in summer, or in September at the latest.

The election leader should be "a face that is maximally acceptable for the public," the MP said.

Public opinion polls have ranked Pospisil among the most popular Czech politicians for several months.

However, Insider writes that his position in the ODS is not unequivocal and that first deputy chairman Martin Kuba is allegedly striving for the position.

"Neither of them wants to look as if he were executing Petr Necas. It would have to be done after a kind of agreement with him," another MP told Insider.

The ODS has failed in several elections of late, the most recently in the direct presidential election in January and its voter preferences have been declining. Many in the ODS, particularly in regions, are allegedly dissatisified with Necas.