US embassy cable - 05PRAGUE1209

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRAGUE 001209 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV EZ 
SUBJECT: SMALL CZECH PARTIES AND THE 2006 ELECTION:  1 + 1 
+ 1 + 1 = 0? 
 
1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  The current consensus in political circles 
in Prague says that there will be only four parties in 
government after next June's elections and that likely 
scenarios include a grand coalition between the Social 
Democrats (CSSD) and the Civic Democrats (ODS), a minority 
government, or an arrangement under which the Communists 
(KSCM) support the Social Democrats. However, there are a 
handful of small, primarily liberal parties that could make a 
different scenario possible if they were to join forces and 
together collect enough votes to make it over the 5% 
threshold needed for entry into parliament. Post sat down 
with former Prague Mayor Jan Kasl, who is trying to use his 
party, the European Democrats (ED), as the umbrella 
organization for such an attempt.  Kasl faces a number of 
problems including personal animosities, conflicting 
ambitions, and lack of money. There is also the threat that 
another small party could emerge as an alternative for 
disaffected voters. A fallback position for Kasl would be to 
unite only for the purposes of the local elections in Prague 
next November. END SUMMARY 
 
2. (U) In the 2002 elections, roughly 1 vote in 8 was cast 
for parties that did not make it into parliament.  Kasl 
estimates that the level of dissatisfied or disaffected 
voters looking for an alternative could be as high as 30 
percent.  Kasl believes that if personal differences can be 
set aside, and adequate financing obtained, his group will 
have no trouble getting more than 5 percent. Those are two 
big ifs.  Kasl's detractors say he lacks the drive and 
pushiness to overcome these problems. 
 
IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL TRY IF I WANT TO 
 
3.(U) Kasl established the ED in the summer of 2002 to 
compete in the local elections in Prague.  The party took 15 
seats and came in 2nd to ODS, which refused to form a 
coalition.  ED is in the opposition in Prague.  In the Spring 
of 2003 ED expanded to regions outside Prague in order to run 
for the EP elections in 2004.  ED negotiated with SNK, the 
Union of Independents, which was started in 2000 to allow 
unaffiliated mayors to compete in regional elections. SNK won 
2.8 percent of the votes in the 2002 elections for the lower 
house and two seats in the 2002 Senate elections  The joint 
slate of ED-SNK won 11 percent of the vote and three seats in 
the 2004 elections for the European Parliament. SNK's 
political leader, Josef Zielenec, who led the joint ticket, 
is now a member of the European Parliament. 
 
4. (SBU) Kasl finds Zielenec a divisive figure.  Kasl said, 
for example, that Senator Karel Schwarzenberg and economist 
Jan Svejnar both refused to join the ED-SNK ticket for the 
elections to the European Parliament because of Zielenec, who 
some accuse of being ambitious and egotistical. Schwarzenberg 
is the sole elected official for the ODA or Civic Democratic 
Alliance.  ODA broke away from the Civic Democrats in 1991, 
to a large extent because of personal antipathy to then ODS 
chairman and current President Vaclav Klaus.  This still 
makes cooperation with ODS difficult, if not impossible. ODA 
currently has heavy debts and support among voters that 
doesn't reach even one percent. 
 
5. (SBU) Kasl finds a number of ideological similarities 
between his party and the Greens, and ex-president Havel is 
pushing to have the Greens as part of Kasl's plans. However, 
Martin Bursik, who is likely to be the next chair of the 
Greens, wants his party to run separately.  The Greens 
received 1.1 percent in the 1998 elections, 2.4 percent in 
the 2002 elections, and 3.16 in the 2004 elections for the 
European Parliament. Former war correspondent and human 
rights activist Jaromir Stetina, though an independent, won a 
seat to the Senate in 2004 on the Greens ticket and could be 
expected to lend his support to Kasl's plan. 
 
6. (SBU) Kasl said he has asked the Czech Republic's former 
EU commissioner, Pavel Telicka, to join the group.  According 
to Kasl, Telicka indicated he would join if Kasl could 
guarantee that Telicka would receive a seat in parliament. 
 
7.(SBU) Kasl thinks Freedom Union party vice-chair, Frantisek 
Pelc, could join the group and run successfully in his 
hometown of Liberec.  Freedom Union is the largest of the 
small parties with 10 members in parliament's lower house. 
But party chief, Justice Minister Pavel Nemec, has so far 
refused to bring the entire party into Kasl's group. 
 
MONEY DOESN'T TALK HERE, IT RANTS 
 
8.(U) Relatively small amounts of money can have significant 
influence on the conduct and outcome of elections in the 
Czech Republic.  Parties receive funds from the state based 
on the number of seats they have in the Senate, The Chamber 
of Deputies, and local governments. If one party decides to 
join another party, the first party must cease to exist, 
thereby foregoing any income from seats it has. The money 
can't be transferred. A seat in the Senate brings the party 
900,000 Crowns, or roughly USD 40,000 a year.  Kasl would 
like to see three parties now represented in the Senate - 
Freedom Union, SNK, and ODA join him for next year's 
elections, but that would mean these parties would have to 
give up their state stipends.  Freedom Union, which is 
expected to disappear from the Chamber of Deputies next year, 
receives USD80,000 a year for Senators Fejfar and Hadrova, 
both of whom are up for election next year.   SNK also 
receives USD40,000 a year for two senators; Petrov whose term 
runs until 2010, and Novotny, whose term ends in 2008.  In 
financial terms, asking SNK to join Kasl's party in 2006 is 
tantamount to asking SNK to forego six installments of 
USD40,000, or nearly a quarter of a million dollars.  The 
third party, ODA, has only one senator, Karel Schwarzenberg, 
but his term also runs until 2010.  If elected officials 
could bring their party stipends with them when they join new 
parties,  it would be much easier for the small parties to 
form larger, significant blocs.  But the law would need to be 
changed by parliament and the bigger parties there have no 
incentive to make it easier for smaller blocs to coalesce 
into stronger, more competitive parties. 
 
9. (SBU) Kasl claims the state owes his party more than 10 
million crowns for the 15 seats it won in the 2002 local 
elections. He says the figure will have risen to 15 million 
by the time of next year's elections and will seriously 
threaten his party's ability to compete in the elections if 
the money is not paid.  Kasl explained that three laws could 
possibly apply and the state has chosen the one that provides 
the smallest stipend.  Kasl says he has raised the issue with 
Finance Minister Sobotka and added that Sobotka doesn't see 
ED as a threat. Courts will settle the issue over the coming 
months, possibly too late for Kasl's election campaign.  In 
the meantime Kasl is using student volunteers. 
 
10.  (U) Parties that receive more than 3 percent of the 
popular vote also are reimbursed by the state.  In the last 
general election, the rate was 90 Crowns, or about four 
dollars per vote. 
 
11. (SBU) If Kasl's group succeeds in getting into 
parliament, Kasl says they will push for European 
integration, more transparency in government, particularly on 
public procurement, and structural reforms needed in areas 
such as pensions and health care. Kasl said he wouldn't be 
content as a member of the parliamentary opposition because 
he feels there is so much that needs to be changed. He said 
he would prefer to join and ODS government, though the party 
would have to modify it's current opposition to European 
integration before the European Democrats could join them. 
Kasl said a coalition with CSSD would also be possible. 
 
12.(SBU) One wild card in the deck is Vladimir Zelezny, 
former director of TV NOVA, the first privately owned 
nationwide TV station to be set up after the fall of 
communism. Zelezny, although considered a crook by many and 
still facing charges of harming a creditor and tax evasion, 
was the only Senator to be elected in the first round of 
voting in 2002. He also was successful in his run for the 
European Parliament in 2004. On August 6th, Zelezny was 
chosen as chairman of a new party, the Independent Democrats. 
Kasl represents a worldly, tolerant, intelligentsia. Zelezny, 
on the other hand, aims to mine the wider vein of xenophobia 
and intolerance. And along with that populist appeal, he has 
money and that could win him enough votes to enter 
parliament. On the day he was chosen to lead the new party, 
Zelezny, who will run in the wine region of Southern Moravia, 
gave an interview to Blesk, the nation's tawdriest tabloid 
and best-selling paper, saying, "Why should Moravian wine be 
made from Moldavian grapes? Why should an American junkie or 
someone interested in child pornography visit our country 
without visas just because he is an American while a 
blameless Czech must undergo the US visa bullying." Kasl said 
he wouldn't work with Zelezny. Ever. Kasl also said he feared 
that Zelezny would succeed and predicted his votes would be 
taken from ODS. Whereas Kasl claims his three year old party 
has approximately 500 members, Zelezny claims to have signed 
up 700 followers in a few weeks. 
 
13. (SBU) If Kasl and those who agree with his plan can't 
make a credible run for representation in Parliament in next 
June's elections, they will continue trying to join forces 
for the Prague local elections, scheduled for next November. 
Senator Edward Outrata, an unaffiliated representative of one 
of Prague's constituencies, supports this plan. As he put it, 
" The idea os to join the forces of the pro-European center 
right, who are basically liberals.  They agree with the Civic 
Democrats on many economic issues, but on the other hand 
can't accept the nationalist orientation, which borders on 
xenophobia." 
 
14. COMMENT: (SBU)It's still too early to say whether any of 
the so-called minnows will make it into the next Czech 
parliament. Administrative hurdles, personal differences, and 
lack of funds mean the small party will have a difficult 
time.  A seat at the table for a group of liberals united 
under Kasl's banner would likely tend to further more honest, 
accountable government, and support positive ties with the 
U.S.  Entry of the Greens into Parliament or a coalition 
government would also foster cleaner government and a 
continuation of the current Czech focus on human rights.  A 
role for Zelezny's party, on the other hand, would lead to 
appeals to Czech nationalism and demagogery. There are many 
voters looking for an alternative to the politics of the last 
eight years, though likely not enough to support the entry of 
all three of these parties into parliament.  Kasl probably 
has the best chance of the three, particularly if he can 
persuade the Greens or Freedom Union to join him.  If he 
can't find some money and bring at least some of the others 
into his tent, Zelezny stands the best chance of becoming the 
small player with the disproportionate influence in national 
politics. 
MUNTER