Prague, March 28 (CTK) – MEP Katerina Konecna, 37, has confirmed that she will run for the Czech Communist Party’s (KSCM) leader at the upcoming extraordinary election congress to be held in Nymburk, central Bohemia, on April 21, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Wednesday.
Konecna will compete for the party leadership with current KSCM chairman Vojtech Filip, 63, and party deputy chairman Josef Skala, 65, who represents a more radical leftist wing in the KSCM.
Konecna did not tell the paper whether she would give up her mandate in the European Parliament (EP) if she succeeded in the election of the KSCM head. She said she would have to consult her fellow party members on this.
Konecna became the absolutely youngest MP when she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the KSCM in June 2002, aged 21 years only. She held the mandate till 2014 when she succeeded in the EP election as number one on the KSCM’s list of candidates. Her mandate expires next year.
The extraordinary congress was convoked in reaction to the party’s debacle in the last October general election, in which the KSCM scored its worst election result in history. It gained mere 7.8 percent of the vote and its deputy group shrank from 33 to 15 MPs.
Yet the Communists’ position in the Chamber of Deputies has strengthened as now their support is decisive to keep another minority government of the election-winning ANO’s chairman Andrej Babis afloat.
Filip originally announced that he would not be defending his post over the poor election results, but then he changed his mind and decided to run for the party head again.
However, MfD reported earlier in March that a rising number of Communist officials would like someone else as their leader and they might back Konecna, the “young blood” in the party who was a child when the communist regime fell in 1989.
Many Communists are of the view that Konecna can refute the idea that the KSCM is a party for old people only, MfD writes.
