Czech PM offers to quit party chair if govt fails

...coalition government with two allies lost a parliamentary confidence vote.

Topolanek upped the stakes in his battle to win support for a cabinet including the centrist Christian Democrats and the Green Party in an attempt to end seven months of political crisis created by an inconclusive election in June.

The three parties have 100 votes in the 200-seat lower house and Topolanek has won no assurances that a leftist deputy might cross the floor to provide the coaliton government with the one vote needed to win a confidence vote.

"In case ... we do not win confidence, I am going to put my post at (the party's) disposal," Topolanek told reporters after a party leadership meeting. If he does so, the party could still ask him to stay in his seat.

Topolanek has been under heavy pressure from the party to strike a deal on a stable government after his first attempt -- a minority Civic Democrat-only administration -- lost a confidence vote in October.

While the Civic Democrat leadership voiced unequivocal support for the coalition government on Thursday, internal differences over the agenda and make-up of the coalition cabinet proposed by Topolanek have been brewing.

President Vaclav Klaus, who formally appoints ministers, has demanded Topolanek find wider support for his cabinet, and has not fixed a date for naming the ministers.

If Klaus appoints Topolanek's administration and it fails to win confidence, it will be the parliamentary speaker who chooses the third prime minister.

The current Social Democrat speaker, however, has pledged to step down before the third attempt, and electing a new one may be difficult in the hung parliament unless there is a wider deal among the main parties. If three successive attempts to form a government fail, the president can call early elections.

[PRAGUE/Reuters/Finance.cz]