Nymburk, Central Bohemia. April 21 (CTK) – The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) will be still headed by party leader Vojtech Filip since he defeated deputy chairman Josef Skala in the second round of the vote at the party congress on Saturday.
Filip received the votes from 165 and Skala from 143 delegates.
In the first round, the delegates did not choose the party leader. In it, Filip received 110 votes and Skala 105. They advanced to the second round.
MEP Katerina Konecna was defeated in the first round as she only received the votes from 79 delegates.
Filip, 63, has been heading the party since October 2005.
In 2016, he was elected for a four-year term, but after the party’s crushing defeat in the election to the Chamber of Deputies in 2017, it was decided that a new vote should be held.
Two years ago, he received 203 out of the 353 valid votes, while Skala gained 150.
Filip is now to lead the Communists until 2022.
“I will be hardly changed by anyone,” Filip said, answering the question of whether he would change the party’s work due to the criticism he could hear at the congress.
Filip said he had never implemented his own views, but only the resolutions of the party’s collective bodies.
Turning to the role of Communists in the talks on the new government conducted by Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO and the Social Democrats, Filip said the KSCM would join them.
Filip repeated that trilateral negotiations should start and the Communists would also have personnel demands.
“We must clearly see to it that the paries do not nominate the people who cause conflicts to some posts,” Filip said.
Earlier this year, he criticised the management of the industry and trade, foreign and defence ministries.
