Prague, Feb 12 (CTK) – The Czech left-wing activist group ProAlt, which was formed in protest against the planned right-wing reforms of the Petr Necas government in 2010, ended its activities, daily Lidove noviny writes.
“A majority of the members who were most active in the movement agreed that the activities of the Prague ‚central‘ ProAlt will end. The reason is primarily our small activity. This is both because of the workload of a part of us and because of the loss of a clear enemy, the Necas government,” ProAlt spokesman Pavel Novak told the paper.
“It turned out that the ProAlt group was first of all a protest movement and it was unable to transform itself into a germ of a new political or social project,” Novak said.
Some members of ProAlt will remain active, however, he told LN, mentioning the group’s branches in Ceske Budejovice, south Bohemia, and Ostrava and Opava, both north Moravia.
ProAlt was founded during the economic crisis when the coalition government of Necas (right-wing Civic Democrats, ODS) planned a lot of unpopular austerity measures. Many trade unions and groups protested against the right-wing reforms and ProAlt was often the organiser of anti-government demonstrations. Necas’s team pushed through most of its reform plans anyway.
A number of left-wing intellectuals supported ProAlt and its spokespersons included sociologist Tereza Stoeckelova, lawyer and human rights advocate Pavel Cizinsky and Jan Majicek, who organised protests against a possible U.S. radar base on Czech territory in the late 2000s.
ProAlt cooperated with nearly all Czech trade union organisations, the Social Democrats (CSSD), the Communists (KSCM), the Greens (SZ) and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL).
One of the first events in which ProAlt took active part was the strong protest against the naming of the conservative Roman Joch to the post of PM Necas’s aide for foreign affairs and human rights.
One of the priorities of ProAlt was to make the then opposition Social Democrats promise that they would cancel all the measures introduced by Necas’s government once they gain power in the country. This happened in early 2014 and the present centre-left government of Bohuslav Sobotka (CSSD) cancelled the measures such as health care fees and the second pillar of the pension system and reintroduced some welfare benefits in the past two years.
