Prague, Nov 7 (CTK) – The only possible Czech right-wing bloc to be able to challenge the expansion of Andrej Babis’s ANO would be a coalition of the Civic Democrats (ODS) and TOP 09 if their leaders managed to join forces, David Klimes writes in daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) yesterday.
TOP 09 chairman Miroslav Kalousek offered recently the establishment of a new election bloc right of the centre with the aim to defeat Babis. It sounds nice, but Kalousek may not really mean it, Klimes says.
There are two reasons for it. First, if the centrist Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and other parties joined such a bloc, it would make the right-wing programme too broad and vague.
Second, if all anti-Babis right-wing voices met in this block, who would be left to form a government majority? The Social Democrats (CSSD) or even ANO? Klimes asks.
Kalousek probably wants to deserve the reputation of “a visionary consolidator of the right wing,” who will be eventually betrayed by down-to-earth politicians from other parties. He can be so sure of the KDU-CSL rejecting his project that he has offered his departure from top politics not to prevent the desired alliance, Klimes points out.
However, he adds, this is just a fairy-tale, the real possibility is only an election coalition of the Civic Democrats (ODS) and TOP 09.
There is no obstacle to it after the October regional and Senate elections. Both parties have still support under 10 percent (Babis scores almost 30). At the same time, Kalousek has understood that his party’s dominance over the ODS lasting for several years is going to end, and that the Civic Democrats who can rely on many mayors and their power in regions are a more viable party out of the two, Klimes writes.
Instead of chattering about cooperation with the Christian Democrats, the ODS and TOP 09 should declare on New Year a clear coalition for the general election due in the autumn of 2017.
Such a coalition will enable both parties to form at least a bit acceptable team of experts in particular sectors.
However, they should not hesitate with the coalition, Klimes says.
If the right wing bloc with 15-20 percent support is strengthening its position in opinion polls as of January, it will attract further voters of small parties. The voters of the Free Citizens’ Party and the Party of Private Entrepreneurs would return to the ODS and those moving between the KDU-CSL and the Mayors (STAN) would come back to TOP 09, Klimes writes.
He adds that the ODS-TOP 09 election block should also field one candidate for prime minister. If this leader presented a good programme, he would score success in the fight against Babis as ANO has no programme and it cannot have any either.
After it won over right-wing voters and then left-wingers in the regional elections, it cannot promote any clear political opinions not to disperse the protest mass of its supporters again, Klimes says.
Right-wing voters now cherish a hope that ODS chairman Petr Fiala and Kalousek will overcome their desire to “keep the small, but mine” and decide to choose something bigger and more successful in the country’s interest. But will they manage it? Klimes writes in conclusion in HN.
