Prague, Oct 9 (CTK) – The ANO movement, winner of the October 7-8 regional elections, attracted some voters of the Communists (KSCM) and Social Democrats (CSSD), former right-wing PM Miroslav Topolanek said in a debate on public Czech Television (CT) yesterday.
The Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) can be considered a winner of the regional polls, too, while the Communists and the CSSD lost a lot, added Topolanek, former Civic Democrat (ODS) chairman and PM in 2006-2009.
The CSSD, ANO and the KDU-CSL form a centre-left coalition government.
However, the CSSD’d defeat will not stir up pressure on PM and CSSD chairman Bohuslav Sobotka to leave the party’s helm, since there is no one to replace him, Topolanek said.
“The ANO new entity had to gain support at the expense of someone. It attracted primarily KSCM and CSSD voters since it had ‘sucked out’ the fragmented right-wing scene of TOP 09, the ODS a and other entities in the previous elections already,” Topolanek said.
Consequently the voter base of ANO led by Finance Minister and billionaire businessman Andrej Babis is rather left than right of the political centre, Topolanek pointed out.
His opponent in the TV debate Vladimir Spidla, former PM in 2002-2004 and EU commissioner in 2004-2010, said there was no threat of a government crisis after the CSSD’s election defeat.
All the government parties would like to present themselves as successful in the crucial general election due in 2017 and they will have to push through a number of tasks until the hot phase of the election campaign is launched in April, Spidla, current chief adviser to Sobotka, said.
ANO won in nine out of the 13 Czech regions, while the CSSD, which comfortably won four years ago and filled 11 posts of regional governors, won only in two, the KDU-CSL in one and the Mayors for the Liberec Region movement won in this region.
