Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 12/5/2007
The Development and the Prospects of the Czech Left – the Role of the Communist Party
December 2005
Institute of International Relations Prague
Abstract
The parties of the Czech left have enjoyed a nominal majority in the House of Representatives of the Czech Parliament: the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) gained 70 seats and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) 41 seats during the elections in June 2002. Both parties have so far used this political potential with caution.
In this context a number of inter-related questions become relevant. Can a communist party and a social-democratic party establish a working relationship? Can “hard” and “soft” leftwing parties develop viable and compatible programmes? Is there enough space for both parties in Czech politics? Left-left co-operation could have profoundly changed the party-political constellation in the Czech Republic after 1989. Yet at the national level the coalition potential of the KSČM has remained close to zero between 1990 and 2005. The KSČM has instead played a blocking role on the Czech political scene — not unlike the French Communist Party in the 1960s and 1970s.
