Liberec, East Bohemia, May 10 (CTK) – The evening talks of the heads of the three Czech ruling parties with President Milos Zeman did not bring any solution to the current political crisis, Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL) chairman and Social Democrat (CSSD) deputy chairman Milan Chovanec told journalists last night.
The CSSD and the KDU-CSL insist that Finance Minister Andrej Babis must leave the government, they said.
ANO leader Babis did not talk to journalists after the meeting. Zeman was not available for comments either.
Babis later told Novinky.cz server that one of the alternatives that Zeman proposed was a government in which neither he nor Sobotka would take part. ANO is ready to talk about this plan, he said.
Chovanec said Babis did not accept the possibility of his resignation at the meeting. He said the problem is caused by the ANO movement. “ANO can resolve it by the departure of Babis from the government,” he added.
Chovanec said he did not expect the proposals that Zeman submitted to lead to any breakthrough in the government crisis, however, he would present them to Sobotka who is in Luxembourg now.
He did not say what exactly Zeman proposed.
Sobotka said it is typical of the Presidential Office that it invited the leaders of the three coalition parties for a meeting on the only day when he was abroad. This was a petty political style, he added.
“If nothing else, it is inefficient to call meetings at the last moment like this,” Sobotka said.
Zeman will have to decide how to react to the proposal to sack Babis, Chovanec said. If he does not take action after he return from China on May 18, the senators said they might file a constitutional complaint against the president, he added.
Belobradek said the participants in the meeting rejected the idea of an early elections.
The regular general election is scheduled for October.
The Chamber of Deputies tonight called on Zeman to dismiss Babis without any protractions and it declared that Babis openly lied and abused his power when he used his media against his political rivals.
Sobotka demanded that rich businessman Babis leave the cabinet mainly because of his unclear property situation and possible tax evasion. Before the Liberec talks, Sobotka said he expected Zeman to announce when he would sack Babis.
Sobotka said ANO could have taken many kinds of steps if it believed that the CSSD violated the coalition pact. He said there was hardly any other way of dismissing a government party leader if the leader failed to acknowledge that he had a problem and kept blaming all the others.
kva/dr
