Dynamics of new party formation in the Czech Republic 1996–2010: looking for the origins of a ‘political earthquake’

The stable and closed nature of the Czech party system and the failure of most new political parties have been among the most salient features of Czech democracy over the past two decades. The results of the 2010 parliamentary elections seemed to mark a break with this pattern: support for two main parties slumped to historically low levels and two new parties, TOP09 and Public Affairs (VV), entered parliament. This article seeks to put the 'political earthquake' of 2010 into perspective by mapping the development of new parties in the Czech Republic from the mid-1990s and relating them to comparative literature and typologies of new party emergence. It concludes that of the two successful new parties in 2010, Public Affairs was, by far, the more novel and important phenomenon. Keywords: political partiesCzech Republicnew partieselectionsEast-Central Europe Acknowledgement An earlier, shorter Czech-language version of this paper was published in Sociologický časopis 47 (1). Notes Authors such as Mainwaring et al. (Citation2009) and Powell and Tucker (Citation2009), who measure and compare within-system electoral volatility and extra-system volatility (shifts in electoral support from established parties to new challengers), conclude that, while high by international standards in the Czech Republic in 1996–2006 both forms of volatility were low compared to other Central and Eastern European states. Powell and Tucker also find that support for Czech new parties (as they define them) fell in every parliamentary election from 1996 to 2006. The number of effective parties is calculated using the Laakso–Taagepera method. The calculation of votes for post-2008 parties seems to include Sovereignty, the Citizens' Rights Party (SPOZ), the Workers' Party of Social Justice (DSSS), Občané.cz, the Party of Free Citizens (SOS) and the Czech Pirate Party (ČPS).The far-right DSSS, which polled 1.14% in 2010, is, however, perhaps best regarded as the continuation of a party founded in 2004. The metaphor of the political 'earthquake' has often been used by political scientists to describe episodes of electoral change. Szczerbiak (Citation2002), for example, characterises Poland's 2001 election – which saw extensive new party emergence and party replacement on the centre-right – in this way on the grounds that the result was unexpected and opened up opportunities for major party system restructuring. The Czech 2010 election meets these broad criteria. However, there has been little effort to define or conceptualise the term. Sikk's (Citation2005, p. 399) latter condition thus excludes as 'genuinely new parties' not only breakaway parties formed by the splits in existing parties, but any groupings involving the participation of 'former prime ministers or 'significant portions of ministers and members of parliament'. Other authors describe broadly the same phenomenon with different labels. Učeň (Citation2007), for example, speaks of 'centrist populism' and Demker (Citation2008) of 'virtue parties'. The development of parties and the party system have been key foci of Czech political science and there is a relatively large literature in both Czech and English on the subject as well as a number of reference works. A more restrictive view might interpret the Czech party system as having formed in 1990–1996 when the ČSSD established itself as the main party of the centre-left in parliament. However, in my interpretation party system formation was completed earlier as ČSSD's status was already evident by 1994–1995. I diverge from this slightly in classifying the Green Party (SZ) and the National Socialists as extra-parliamentary parties. Although both had representation in the Czech (and Czechoslovak) parliaments in 1992, this was gained by a short-lived ad hoc coalition, the Liberal Social Union, and each clearly lacked sufficient support to cross the 5% threshold independently. Sikk (Citation2005), for example, sees 'new' parties as first-time contenders + extra parliamentary parties, Tavits (Citation2008) as new contenders + new breakaway parties. Although authors disagree about whether 'breakaway' parties should be termed genuinely new, such 'overlapping' should not necessarily be regarded as making the categories derived from the literature incoherent. Indeed, such overlaps are common in most 'classically' constructed typologies – for example, the categories of 'Communist Parties' and 'Conservative Parties' 'overlap' because members of both groups are parties, but are meaningful and exclusive categories. There can, however, be advantages in fuzzier 'family resemblance' approaches party typologisation. For a discussion, see Sikk (Citation2009). This pattern can also be founded, on a smaller scale, in the Citizens' Rights Party (SPOZ) founded in 2009 by former Social Democrat Prime Minister Miloš Zeman and former leading Social Democrats. In May 2010 SPOZ came close to crossing the 5% threshold. The typology of party appeals does not, it should emphasised, seek to explain the success or failure of individual parties in specific elections, which are affected by a multitude of factors beyond the nature of their political appeals. Both US and TOP09 sought to project novelty and freshness in their political presentation and by introducing (minor) organisational innovations such as the recognition of sympathisers in party statutes. As with the prominent centre-right 'purifiers' both the Left Bloc (LB) and Party of the Democratic Left (SDL) were breakaway parties, having been founded by leading members of the KSČM. The two established parties on the centre-right, the Civic Democrats (ODS) and Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) offered distinct – and to some extent, diametrically opposed – policies: the former secular, pro-market and individualist, the latter stressing the need for a social market, the development of social policy, greater recognition of the Church, decentralisation, civil society development. There was thus limited competition between the two. It is also problematic to classify the appeal of the Civic Movement – Free Democrats (OH-SD), which emerged from Civic Forum in 1991 as a major governing party but had become a minor political actor by 1996. Although OH-SD policies overlapped with those of centre-right 'purifer' parties, its efforts to project itself as part of a distinct European liberal party family – including an ill-advised merger with the 'historic' Liberal Social National Party (LSNS) in 1996 – would lead me, on balance, to view it as a 'prophet' party. Other strongly eurosceptic groups like Party of Free Citizens (SSO), which define themselves as a conservative free market parties standing up for principles abandoned by the Civic Democrats, clearly classify as 'purifiers'. Sovereignty seems formally to have begun as a coalition between the Politika 21 party founded by Bobošíková in 2006 and the tiny Common Sense Party (SZR). Although SZR contested the 2002 and 2006 elections to the Chamber of Deputies, I classify Sovereignty as new contender in 2010 as its impetus and leadership clearly derived from Bobošíková's group. The inclusion of independents and (supposed) representatives of civil society is also characteristic of other 'new' party categories. For example, the Green Party offered places on its electoral list to signatories of the Brandýs Initiative manifesto in 2002, while the Freedom Union recruited non-aligned academics and businesspeople as candidates. The ED were a small liberal party formed in 2002 by the former Civic Democrat mayor of Prague Jan Kasal. Its support and organisation were concentrated in Prague, where it performed strongly in municipal elections in November 2002. A similar rationale was given for the merger of Politika 21 and the Common Sense Party (SZR) to form Sovereignty, although there is little evidence that SZR has a strong grassroots presence (CitationSuverenita n.d.). In the Czech case the main hurdle is the collection of a 1000-signature petition. It has been suggested that the comparative size of gap in funding for parliamentary and non-parliamentary parties was one the principal reasons for the stability of the Czech party system (Linek and Outlý Citation2008). However, this claim appears not to have been comparatively tested. Countries with comparable electoral and funding thresholds and a similar disproportionality of funding such as Estonia do not seem to have undergone significant party system stabilisation in consequence (Sikk and Kangur Citation2008). Such unidimensionality may function, in particular, to close down the space for 'prophetic' parties making new ideological appeals, leaving new parties with a limited range of usable political appeals the most potent of which might be to position themselves as 'purifiers'. Indeed, arguably the failures of the interwar Czech party system and, especially, the intense 'partification' of the state administration – in conjunction with the experience of communist one party rule – did as much to engender and reinforce Czech anti-partyism, which still forms a strong current in public opinion. DEU merged with the Freedom Union in 2001. Under the new system parties fielding lists in all electoral districts had to pay fees totalling 200,000 Czech crowns (€8000 at current exchange rates), rather than deposits (forfeited by parties not entering parliament) of 1.6 million crowns (€64,000). However, Linek and Lyons' (Citation2007) study of parliamentary and European elections in the Czech Republic and Slovakia finds that Second Order Election Thesis is mediated by regional context. No similar subsidy is paid to senators elected without a party nomination. Prague functions de facto as a fourteenth region, but is formally a municipality with special powers. Election to Prague's elected city council take place in the same years as local, rather than regional election. The regional assemblies' size (45–65 members) does not impose a higher effective threshold. In 2000 regional elections national independents' groupings (SNK, Nezávislí) were the most successful type of challenger party. However, by 2008 such groups had, through a process of alliance-making and merger, evolved into nationally organised minor parties – Nezávislí became the basis of the Independent Democrats of Vladimír Železný, while SNK had merged with the EDs into a conventional party of the reformist liberal right – and were replaced in regional assemblies by a variety of purely regional groupings. As noted, following the 2008 regional election many of which coalesced into the national Mayors and Independents grouping that has allied itself with TOP09. However, given that the Czech Republic elects 22 MEPs and functions as a single electoral district in European elections the (mean) effective threshold is somewhat lower. The ULD was a coalition of small pro-market parties: the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA), Freedom Union – Democratic Union (US-DEU), Path of Change (CZ) and the Liberal Reform Party (LIRA). These parties were Sovereignty (Suverenita), the Right Bloc, the EDS, Public Affairs (VV), Mayors and Independents, the Party of Free Citizens (SOS), SNK-ED and the Workers Party (DS). The far right DS was later dissolved by court order as unconstitutional, but quickly re-formed under a similar name. The Libertas.cz grouping narrowly fell below 1%. The grouping's full name was initially Sovereignty – the Jana Bobošíková Bloc, amended in 2011 to Sovereignty – Bloc of the Future (SBB). It seems initially to have been a coalition between the party founded by Bobošíková in 2006 (originally called Politika 21, later re-named Sovereignty) and the tiny, populist Common Sense Party (SZR). Bárta's goals in financing and developing Public Affairs seem to have been limited to municipal politics in Prague and other large urban centres and regions. VV's meteoric rise in national politics seems to have derailed these plans, subjecting Bárta to immense media scrutiny and leading him into an unplanned role as a government minister and national politician. Hopkin and Paolucci suggest that the 'business firm' model takes the trend towards party professionalisation and disengagement from civil society to their logical end. Such appeals were central to, for example, the rise of groupings created by businessmen-politicians such as Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia in 1994 and Ross Perot's well-supported third party campaign for the US presidency in 1992, when he polled 18.9% of the popular vote (Brown Citation1997, Pasquino Citation2007). Bárta was not a member of the party and formally took only secondary roles in VV as campaign manager and later MP and (briefly) minister. The continuation of this pattern is suggested, for example, by the creation in October 2011 by millionaire businessman Andrej Babiš of the anti-corruption, reform movement ANO 2011 which is to be registered as a political party to contest parliamentary elections in 2014 (iHned.cz Citation2011).