Prague, Oct 22 (CTK) – The ANO movement, winner of the general election, will nominate Radek Vondracek for chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Czech parliament, ANO first deputy head Jaroslav Faltynek told reporters after the talks between ANO and the Social Democrats (CSSD) on Sunday.
Vondracek is current deputy head of the lower house.
“Their (Social Democrats’) reaction seemed to me moderately positive, they have no problem with this name,” Faltynek said.
The Social Democrats said after the meeting on the arrangement of the new Chamber of Deputies that they would debate the nomination within the package of changes ANO would like to push through in the Chamber of Deputies.
ANO would like to preserve the current number of four lower house deputy heads, and it would raise it to five maximally, Faltynek said.
The Social Democrats expressed the same view. CSSD acting chairman Milan Chovanec said four deputy heads were sufficient.
“The Chamber of Deputies should remain a platform where one can stand up and express his view. We will not support any restrictions of the possibility of a debate,” Chovanec said.
CSSD election leader Lubomir Zaoralek called ANO’s proposals quite sober.
Faltynek stressed that the proposed changes to the Chamber of Deputies’ order of procedure and habits should help the Chamber work well and be productive after the record high number of nine parties had entered it in the October 20-21 election.
The Social Democrats also announced to the ANO representatives that they were prepared to go to opposition in view of their poor election result.
The CSSD, senior member of the outgoing coalition government with ANO and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), suffered a debacle gaining its worst ever election result of mere 7.3 percent of the vote and its deputy group shrank from 50 to 15 members.
ANO of of billionaire businessman Andrej Babis scored a landslide victory gaining 29.64 percent of the vote and 75 mandates in the 200-seat lower house.
It was followed by the Civic Democrats (ODS) with 11.3 percent, the Pirates with 10.8 percent of the vote, the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) of Tomio Okamura with 10.6 percent, the Communists (KSCM) with 7.8 percent, the CSSD, the KDU-CSL with 5.8 percent, TOP 09 with 5.3 percent and the Mayors and Independents (STAN) with 5.2 percent.
ANO leaders met on Sunday, a day after the election, the KSCM and STAN representatives. On Monday, they will lead talks with the SPD. Babis will also meet President Milos Zeman who said on Sunday he would name him prime minister.
