Prague, Dec 15 (CTK) – The passage of the direct election of Czech president, which has turned the head of state into a monarch who cannot be removed, was the biggest mistake of the Senate, its former chairman Petr Pithart (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) said on the Senate’s 20th anniversary on Thursday.
He said the upper house agreed with the step “in a sudden temporary insanity” even though most of the senators were against it.
Senators from the government parties supposed that the opposition senators would block the direct presidential election and vice versa, Pithart said during a meeting that marked the 20 years from the first constituent upper house session.
The Senate passed the constitutional amendment on direct presidential election in 2012, same as the Chamber of Deputies several months before.
In the first direct election in early 2013, Czech people chose the incumbent President Milos Zeman, former left-wing prime minister. Until then, the head of the state was elected by the two houses of parliament, several rounds were mostly needed and speculations about why some MPs changed their mind during the process appeared and led to speculations about political bargaining and even blackmail.
The idea of a direct presidential election was very popular in the Czech Republic in the 2000s and early 2010s and parties repeatedly used it in their election campaigns, presenting its introduction as one of their priorities.
In 2012, Pithart was one of the few politicians who clearly opposed the direct election. He said people were unable to choose a good president.
Pithart, 75, was one of the leading dissidents during the Czechoslovak communist period that ended in 1989. He was Czech prime minister in 1990-92 and member of the Senate leadership from 1996 to 2012 when he left politics. In 1996-98 and 2004-08 he was upper house chairman.
