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Will the Czech government fall next week?
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| Contributor | 411 Name Removed |
| Last Edited | 411 Name Removed Oct 28, 2012 10:52am |
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| Category | Speculative |
| Author | The Economist |
| Media | Newspaper - Economist (The) |
| News Date | Sunday, October 28, 2012 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | FOR years the Czech Republic has suffered from weak, ineffective governments. They controlled slim majorities in parliament and got bogged down in bickering and stalemates. As a rule, a handful of coalition lawmakers blackmailed their cabinets in order to capitalise on their valuable votes.
In 2010 Petr Nečas’s three-party centre-right ruling coalition won 118 safe seats in the 200-head lower house. Voters rejoiced that actual policymaking may prevail over politicking. By now even the last of them realises that they had hoped in vain.
Mr Nečas's impressive majority is gone and the government is facing collapse. His cabinet is held hostage by six lawmakers from Mr Nečas's ruling Civic Democratic Party, also known as ODS. They oppose the cabinet's plan to raise tax in order to bring the budget down 3% of GDP as mandated by the European Union.
Encouraged by Václav Klaus, the president, who has waged his own campaign to topple Mr Nečas, the sextet struck down a bill that proposes to raise the two VAT brackets from 14% to 15% and from 20% to 21% respectively and to increase income tax for top earners in September. (The rich are taxed relatively lightly and some wealthy, civically minded wealthy Czechs say that they should be taxed more.) |
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