Prague, Oct 16 (CTK) – The numbers of the disabled and the Roma people among Czech election candidates have been falling, with no Roma party running in the general election due on Friday and Saturday and no disabled person being among the parties’ leading candidates, the two groups’ representatives have told CTK.
Some Roma representatives are running on other parties’ lists, but the interest in the upcoming elections is low among the Roma people, Miroslav Broz, from the Konexe NGO, said.
There are also strong foreign communities in the country, but only their members who have Czech citizenship can take part in the elections.
A total of 33,229 foreigners acquired Czech citizenship between 2005 and 2015, including 7,488 Ukrainians, 5,705 Slovaks, 1,724 Russians and 1,185 Vietnamese, according to the Czech Statistical Office (CSU).
The National Disability Council head, Vaclav Krasa, said the disabled are as interested in the elections as the rest of the population. He expects their turnout to be only slightly lower than the average.
“Of course, they are aware that the election result will influence the extent of [the state’s further] support and protection for them,” Krasa said, adding that the disabled consider it very important for issues related to disability to be among the new government’s priorities.
Krasa said the disabled incline to the left, though some vote for right-wing or new protest parties.
He said he does not know about any disabled person among the current candidates.
“I remember that in the previous years, there was always somebody with a disability in the Chamber of Deputies. I was a deputy myself for ten years (1992-1998 for the Civic Democrats, ODS; 1998-2002 for Freedom Union), but I think that no disabled person will be in the [new] Chamber,” Krasa said, adding that fewer and fewer disabled people run in Czech elections.
“In this respect, we lag behind other countries. We make up 10 percent of the Czech population, but our presence in representative bodies is practically nil,” Krasa said on behalf of the disabled.
Czech Roma people are far from planning massive participation in the elections, activists have told CTK.
The 10.5-million Czech Republic has about 250,000-strong Roma minority, but many of its members have Slovak nationality and are not eligible to vote in the Czech Republic.
About one third of Czech Roma people live in socially deprived localities (ghettos).
“Unfortunately, Roma people’s participation in elections has always been very low due to their low education level,” Broz told CTK.
He said the Konexe NGO is afraid that attempts to forge or buy Roma people’s votes may occur in north Bohemian ghettos. In the past, this practice led to repeated election in some constituencies, such as Krupka, Broz said.
He said a part of the Roma minority is nostalgic for the communist period when they allegedly were better off.
“The older generation of Roma voters cherishes such memories. I think some of them vote for the Communists (KSCM),” Broz said.
He said Roma parties remain inactive, and the interests of the Roma people have been promoted by the Green Party (SZ).
The Greens are neither represented in the Chamber of Deputies nor are they expected to cross the 5-percent threshold in the weekend elections.
Broz said several Roma candidates are running for the Greens, all of them being representatives of Roma elites.
Broz said 20 Roma candidates ran in the general election in 2013, which was the highest number from 1990, but their number is very low this time.
“It is lower than the Roma people’s share in the population,” he said.
