Prague, Oct 11 (CTK) – The adroit marketing of Czech Deputy Prime Minister and ANO head Andrej Babis is one of the major causes of the Communists’s (KSCM) failure in the weekend regional elections, KSCM deputy chairman Jiri Dolejs has told CTK.
The KSCM failed to defend its victory of 2012 in either of the two regions. It lost about a half of seats on regional assemblies.
Dolejs said during the year to go to the October 2017 general election, the KSCM must find a way of returning voters to the polling stations and explain to them that billionaire Finance Minister Babis is not the person to deal with social themes.
Dolejs, who is the deputy chairman for elections, said he will prepare the first major analysis of the party’s election failure for the meeting of a broader KSCM leadership on October 22.
“The ANO movement stripped all parties of voters, and this also applies to us,” Dolejs said.
He said the style Babis’s movement presents is an adroit trick with which the government party turned into a collector of protest votes.
But it is not enough to only warn of ANO’s policy, Dolejs said. A better tactic is to alert to the fact that ANO will not hear to progressive taxes, that Babis in his capacity as finance minister was against raising pensions, against setting a firm retirement cap and the like until he changed his mind only shortly before the elections.
Dolejs said the weekend voting was not about the administration of regions and that is why it did not reflect the fact that Communists were in some regional governments and were co-responsible for decision-making.
“Many people do not even know the composition of regional councils, while others think they are trying, which is good, but they did not come to the polls,” he said.
KSCM chairman Vojtech Filip said after the votes were counted on Saturday night that he will not ask regional conferences to draw political responsibility from the party’s failure.
Dolejs said yesterday the tasks the deputy chairmen were assigned at the party’s congress in May must be completed in full quality.
Dolejs is responsible for the party’s expert background, elections, parliamentary and local policy, and cooperation with the trade unions and the left.
ms/dr/rtj
