The opposition Social Democrats pledged Sunday to counter government policies after gaining a majority in the Senate that gives it the power to reject Cabinet bills. The ČSSD won 13 seats in runoff voting on Oct. 19-20 for a third of the Senate, according to the statistics office. PM Petr Nečas’s Civic Democrats got four seats, while his coalition partner, the TOP09 party, won two. The vote gives the Social Democrats a total of 46 senators in the 81-seat chamber and the Civil Democrats 15.
