(Repeats story published late on Tuesday)
By Jan Lopatka
PRAGUE, March 24 (Reuters) - Czech parties will have a hard
time agreeing on a new government after Tuesday's no-confidence
vote and an early election is difficult to achieve, leaving the
country to face protracted political wrangling.
Four defectors from the Czech ruling three-party minority
coalition voted alongside the opposition leftists in the vote,
bringing the government down halfway through its six-month term
as EU president and more than a year before an election
scheduled for mid-2010.
President Vaclav Klaus, a eurosceptic estranged from Prime
Minister Mirek Topolanek's Civic Democrats, will now have the
right to pick the next prime minister.
Topolanek said he wanted Klaus to give him a new mandate to
try forming a new cabinet, a hard task given that neither the
left nor the right commands majority in the lower house.
The balance of power lies with a handful of independents who
have defected from both camps.
The left may also try to lure over some deputies and form a
majority, which would include the far-left Communists, but that
may be difficult given the parliamentary numbers. Klaus has in
the past refused to allow the Communists any share of power.
Topolanek's cabinet could stay in power for weeks or months,
even after it resigns, to ensure continuity.
KLAUS'S TURN
"What will follow now depends mainly on the president," said
political analyst Bohumil Dolezal of the Charles University.
"The government is in resignation until the president
appoints the new prime minister... which he can do whenever he
pleases; the constitution does not bind him."
Any new government must ask for confidence.
If it fails, Klaus appoints another nominee. If he or she
fails as well, the president will appoint a third one, this time
nominated by the lower house speaker, a leftist Social Democrat.
If the third prime minister fails to win confidence as well,
Klaus can dissolve the house and call an early election, ahead
of regular vote due in mid-2010.
Klaus refused to comment on when he would appoint a new
prime minister.
PARTY DEAL ON EARLY VOTE?
The Czech government crisis has a precedent in 1998, when
political gridlock was broken by a cross-party deal to call an
early election via a constitutional amendment.
This is a possible way forward, but that would require an
agreement of both Topolanek's Civic Democrats and the leftist
Social Democrats.
The constitutional amendment would have to be backed by
three-fifth majority in both houses of parliament.
So far, Paroubek has spoken in favour of an early election
in the autumn this year or in the spring next year, and there
should be a government of experts not tied to political parties.
Topolanek said he would not support any such government and
if no fully-fledged government is formed, elections should be
held in the summer this year.
"I think that if elections were to be tied to European
Parliament elections (in June), it wouldn't be very realistic,"
said political lecturer Pavel Saradin from the Masaryk
University.
"It would hard to imagine that in July or August, when
people are on holiday. The most likely, ideal period would be
sometime in September or sometime in the autumn of 2009."
