Prague, Feb 20 (CTK) – The Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) will hold its next election congress in Brno on March 10-11, 2017, or eight months before the regular general election, CSSD leader Bohuslav Sobotka told journalists on Monday.
The previous congress was held last spring in Prague. The CSSD approved its new statutes then, which set quotas for the number of women running for them in elections, and Sobotka defended his post and pushed through his candidates for the party’s narrow leadership.
In reaction to complaints that there was not enough space to thoroughly discussed the party’s priorities at the 2015 congress, Sobotka promised to organise a programme conference. This conference was planned for last November, but the CSSD leadership postponed it indefinitely due to Sobotka’s busy schedule.
The CSSD won the general election held in late 2013, gaining 20.5 percent of the vote, and it formed a coalition government with the ANO movement and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL). Opinion polls showed that ANO has been more popular than the CSSD for many months.
