Prague, Jan 26 (CTK) – The Czech junior government Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and the opposition Mayors and Independents (STAN) movement who have indicated they might cooperate in the autumn general election, would probably approve their possible cooperation at the end of March.
STAN will hold its assembly during the last March weekend (25-26) and the KDU-CSL will have its national conference, the party’s top body between two congresses, on Friday, March 24.
The date was confirmed by the party’s spokeswoman Petra Hrusova.
STAN ended its cooperation with the rightist opposition TOP 09 in December and since then, it has been seeking a new partner.
It has addressed about 20 regional groupings and it also considers cooperating with the Party of Entrepreneurs.
The KDU-CSL and STAN boards started to hold official negotiations in December.
The KDU-CSL stresses that it is only negotiating with STAN. KDU-CSL representatives say the party could only cooperate with other political entities if STAN embraced them.
KDU-CSL chairman Pavel Belobradek has ruled out cooperation with Ivo Valenta, owner of the Synot betting and lottery company, who is a senator for the Party of Entrepreneurs, but not its member.
The KDU-CSL and STAN believe that cooperation would help them become a more important player on the Czech political scene.
KDU-CSL first deputy chairman Marian Jurecka has spoken about the possible joint project as a historic chance that was there previously 15 years ago.
At that time, the KDU-CSL participated in the Quad-Coalition project, whose voter support crossed 20 percent when its popularity culminated.
In the general election in 2002, the coalition gained 14.3 percent of the vote.
Daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Wednesday that the KDU-CSL and STAN would be running in the autumn election with a joint list of candidates and a joint name.
They would have their own candidate for the prime minister. It would be neither Belobradek, nor STAN chairman Petr Gazdik, MfD wrote.
ms/t
