Prague, Sept 26 (CTK) – The Czech government will only rule for one more year, which moves it from the stage of taking less popular, but necessary measures, to the stage where it is lavishly handing out money, which may also benefit it in the October regional elections, Lidove noviny (LN) writes yesterday.
Usually, regional elections are held two years before the general election, but the early fall of Petr Necas’s (Civic Democrats, ODS) government in 2013 tilted this pattern.
Another specificity this year is the fact that the same party, the Social Democratic Party (CSSD), heads the government and a crushing majority of regions, LN writes.
It writes that this opens a broader space for the phenomenon that precedes every election, or the approving of gifts.
The biggest attraction this year is health care. The CSSD has already once gained regions thanks to its promise to abolish regulatory fees, which were introduced by a previous rightist government, even though this matter is not within the power of regions, LN writes.
It writes that now, shortly before the regional elections, the government approved a 10 percent growth in doctors and nurses’ salaries.
One day later, Health Minister Svatopluk Nemecek (CSSD) signed an agreement with the Association of Regions which guarantees regional hospitals to get the same pay rises which teaching hospitals will enjoy, LN writes.
The government has also included firefighters, police, teachers and civil servants in the group of employees whose salaries will be raised. In addition, monthly pensions will be indexed with 300 crowns as from January, LN writes.
In this respect, the CSSD has a strategic advantage in campaigning along the country because it controls ministries that are attractive for its voters – education, health care and social affairs, LN writes.
With the exception of the Usti Region, which is headed by Communist Oldrich Bubenicek, and the Liberec Region, which is controlled by Martin Puta, from Mayors and Independents (STAN), the Social Democrat Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, offering bonuses, can be flanked by a Social Democrat governor, LN writes.
Roads and their condition are a problem that bothers people everywhere and that is why they were reconstructed across the country throughout the summer, LN writes.
It writes that regional representatives traditionally promise to complete the construction of motorway sections and of bypasses and to connect everything into one modern fast network after every election, even though regions only coordinate works in this case, while the state is the chief responsible entity.
However, regions are responsible for second and third category roads. That is why the state, which was unable to spend money on its projects in the past two years, has shifted its accumulating surpluses to regions, LN writes.
($1=24.096 crowns)
