Upset Election in the Czech Republic: Voters Send a Flare Up for the West to Follow
By Cameron Munter, Skytop Contributor / October 19th, 2021
Cameron Munter served as ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the Bin Laden raid. He was ambassador to Serbia during the Kosovo independence crisis. He served twice in Iraq, in Mosul as Provincial Reconstruction Leader and in Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission. In the course of three decades as a career diplomat, he was also NSC Director in the Clinton and Bush White Houses, and served overseas in Warsaw, Prague, and Bonn.
Munter studied at Cornell and earned a PhD in history from Johns Hopkins, and has taught at Pomona College, Columbia University School of Law, and UCLA.
Currently a global consultant living in Prague, Munter was President and CEO of the East West Institute, a nonprofit engaged in global conflict prevention. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy and serves on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards.
Resisting the Inexorable Rise of Populism
The Czech elections on October 8-9 provided somewhat of a surprise to those who had expected populism to triumph. For many outsiders, a kind of fatalism had set in, such as the bad behavior of Hungary’s Viktor Oban and the latest set of constitutional crises about the primacy of EU law in EU countries taking place in Jarsoslaw Kaczynski’s Poland.
And yet the Czechs voted to throw out their relatively mild populistic counterpart, Andrej Babis. More telling, the voters gave a blow to extremist parties in general, calling out the socialists (CSSD), allies of Babis, and the communists (KSCM), who tolerated his minority government. Both failed to surpass the 5% hurdle to enter parliament, and the anti-immigration and anti-EU SPD saw its support fall slightly as well.
One can’t help but compare the Czech results to those in neighboring Germany two weeks ago in which the center also firmly held. The leftist Linke party was saved from losing its seats—worthy to note that it too polled less than 5% — by an institutional quirk, and the rightist AfD made no headway either.
In both Germany and the Czech Republic, voters chose a variety of moderate parties. In both countries, the challenge is going to be creating workable coalitions among progressives, local activists, liberals, and conservatives—a coalition of centrists who agree on one thing: it’s time to resist what seemed to be the inexorable rise of populism.
New Coalitions Forming
In the Czech Republic, the center right SPOLU (Together) coalition gained a plurality with just over 27% of the vote, topping the populist ANO party of Prime Minister Babis.
SPOLU is a team composed of the conservative ODS. Its leader, Petr Fiala, who is likely to become the next Czech Prime Minister, is uncannily like Germany’s unexciting but reputedly competent Olaf Scholz. TOP-09 is mainly an elite urban party that is closest to retaining the mantle of governance associated with the late Vaclav Havel. And, KDU/CSL is Christian Democrats with a small but solid electorate among older, rural voters.
SPOLU will need support from the other two opposition parties: the progressive, young, urban Pirates, and their partners, STAN (the party of mayors). The Pirates and STAN are less ideological than pragmatic anti-corruption and green politicians. Their 15% total, added to SPOLU, has a solid majority in the parliament.
All these centrists have different attitudes toward taxes, business, climate change, the pandemic and other issues; but they share a dislike for Babis and his manifestly corrupt populism. Babis is recognized most recently, as outed in the recent Pandora Papers, for shady dealings in offshore purchases.
The challenge in governance will be like that of Germany–where an SPD/FDP/Greens coalition will find it tough to find common ground.
Moving Past the Dark Side
And yet. Where did the voters come from who made these choices, plumping for centrists who are generally progressive, generally supportive of human rights, clearly pro-NATO, Western Europe and the U.S. (aka Atlanticists), and who are skeptical of China and Russia?
One rather symbolic hint comes from the health of the Czech President, Milos Zeman.
Zeman has a largely symbolic but sometimes cleverly influential role in Czech politics. He has been instrumental in protecting the interests of what many here refer to as Old Structure leaders, staunch supporters of Babis in a rather sleazy way. Few Czechs who support Zeman do so because they think he’s clean. Instead, voters often say he may be a crook but he’s our crook, and a man who speaks for the people (thus giving him somewhat of an aura of the fatherly despot).
Zeman has been a strong supporter of Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China. Now he’s reputed to be on his deathbed, kept alive by a cabal of similarly shady advisors. When he dies in office, it will be the end of any remaining connection to the dark side of the last three decades.
Younger, Educated, and Travelled Voters
The Communists and Socialists lost their mandates for the first time since the 1989 revolution, resulting in their collapse. Both had been representative mainly of older, less educated people who had not found the transition from socialism to capitalism easy. Plus, the defeat of the populist Babis to the decline of Zeman signals that there is a new sense of politics afoot. Arguably, this comes from a new constituency—one that is younger, better educated, better travelled and more efficacious in voting behavior.
These new voters don’t remember the bleak Czechoslovakia before 1989.
They watched as idealists, for example Havel, battled cynical realists like former president Vaclav Klaus and Zeman. Considered the more fortunate among them, they took advantage of a new European identity after 2004. They studied overseas and learned foreign languages. Neither are they starry-eyed innocents born of the Velvet Revolution, nor the crude manipulators of systemic change that led to questionable privatizations or “anything goes” business habits.
A Telling Sign to Consider
However, the election winners are hardly all paragons of virtue. There are pockets of ingrained corruption in Czech life that one vote will hardly eradicate. But, the motto of the SPOLU coalition was “change.” The leader of the Pirates, Ivan Bartos, with his dreadlocks and hipster image, certainly looks like a far cry from the leaders of yesteryear. He’s a chasm away from the ponderous condescension of Zeman, or the deft yet dark dealings of Babis.
While not yet signaling a wholesale shift in Central Europe, the Czech elections–and Germany’s echo–could indicate that voters are tired of more than just populists and the politics of resentment. They are ready to press beyond the old structures, and the walls erected to safeguard them. The voters in this recent election sent a signal to political leaders. A telling signal that voters have moved past the undisciplined and formerly tolerated tendency of leaders who enrich themselves and their confreres.
Anticipate an arduous road before Prague or Berlin arrive at a new government. Even then, expect challenges in governance created through diverse, even contradictory, groupings who must build a platform to achieve an effectively functioning coalition. But at the very least, we should consider that the future–even in Warsaw and Budapest–might not be chained into a dystopian populist lock.
Orban and Kaczynski are products of the dark side of the 1989 revolutions. Following the Czech lead, might the next generation of Poland or Hungary rally for a more promising future?