Prague, Oct 10 (CTK) – The Czech opposition Civic Democrats (ODS) warn against a post-election alliance of the ANO movement, the Communists (KSCM) and Tomio Okamura’s Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), and urge still undecided voters to support the ODS in the general election, ODS leaders told the media on Tuesday.
ODS chairman Petr Fiala said the media debate has been seriously failing during the campaign before the October 20-21 election.
“Instead of arguments and programmes being presented in the campaign, we can see part of the media trying to make an impression as if the election were a battle between ANO and the Social Democrats (CSSD) only,” Fiala said.
He criticised ANO and the CSSD, which are partners in the three-party centre-left cabinet, for governance failures.
The key thing in the upcoming elections is that it is for the first time since 1989 that ANO may gain a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and “crack down on the Czech Republic,” Fiala said, citing an expression from a controversial recording that showed ANO leader and billionaire Andrej Babis in a private debate with a journalist.
If the election outcome corresponds to the forecasts, ANO may be joined by the KSCM and the SPD in forming a new cabinet, which the ODS considers a fall to the political bottom and the worst threat to Czech democracy since 1989, Fiala said.
ODS deputy chairwoman Alexandra Udzenija said the ODS will use the last ten days left before the elections to persuade people that politics should be decent, should have content and that programme should be decisive.
The upcoming elections will be more important than what they seem to be now, she said.
If democratic-minded voters shun elections, it means that afterwards, the new government might “crack down” on everybody, Udzenija added.
According to a STEM election model released last week, ANO would win the election with 26.5 percent of the vote, followed by the KSCM and the CSSD. The other parties that would enter parliament are the ODS, the SPD, the far extra-parliamentary Pirates and the junior government Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL).
