Prague, Aug 8 (CTK) – Czech war veteran Miroslav Litinsky was elected the new leader of the Dawn-National Coalition, the smallest parliamentary party, at its election conference Saturday.
The party has also changed its name and logo to a lion with the crown.
The party was established by tourism businessman Tomio Okamura. With the changes, it wants to put an end to the disputes that have dogged it and resulted in Okamura’s departure.
The Dawn now has nine members of the 200-seat Chamber of Deputies.
The party also elected its five deputy chairpersons. These will be Karel Fiedler, Olga Havlova, Jana Hnykova, Martin Lank and Jan Zilvar.
Marek Cernoch was elected the first deputy chairman of the party.
The party board will have eight members.
At present, the party has 155 members.
Lidinsky stressed in his speech that the Czech Republic should be able to protect its culture and national identity.
“If we are to succeed, we will have to be able to defend our borders against immigrants,” Lidinsky said.
The Dawn wants to “exert pressure on the government” over the issue.
“We must also step up the civic activity,” he added.
The disputes inside Dawn, a small populist party, forced some of its members including its founder to leave several months ago.
Facing a rebellion of some of the members, Okamura left the party in February.
He established his own party, called Freedom and Direct Democracy.
