Czech right-wing govt fails, only CSSD capable of ruling- Sobotka

At present, the CSSD is the only consolidated political force that is capable of ruling the country. If it came to power after the 2014 elections, it would take over a devastated country, Sobotka, who seeks re-election as CSSD chairman, said.

He said the CSSD´s programme for 2014, which is yet to be completed, outlines four pillars which are a restart of the economy, reconstruction of the state, correction of the unjust reforms introduced by the present cabinet, and a just governance.

New Czech President Milos Zeman is the CSSD´s natural programme ally, Sobotka pointed out.

Zeman, winner of the direct presidential polls in January, was CSSD chairman and PM in 1998-2002. However, he fell out with the party and left it in 2007.

The CSSD, the most popular Czech party and the strongest in both houses of Czech parliament, is widely expected to win the general election next year.

"Where is the economic growth the right wing was promising?" Sobotka asked.

He recalled the widespread motto from the 1990s saying the right wing is creating values while the left camp is distributing them.

"The right wing has been governing for seven years since 2006. The time has come to ask where the created values are. Where are the [promised] surpluses, where are the reserve funds?" Sobotka said, applauded by several hundreds of delegates to the congress.

He said the right-wing coalition´s rule has caused a situation afflicting not only the lowest-income groups but also members of the middle class and entrepreneurs.

As a result of the government´s botched reforms, people are faced with disintegration of the state and with chaos.

"As the state is ceasing to function, people do not count on it any more. All that the state offered to people in the past years has been more and more expensive, of a lower quality, unreliable, bureaucratic and impersonal," Sobotka said.

Protest parties such as Public Affairs (VV) are trying to benefit from the rising unemployment and people´s growing anger. Unlike the CSSD, these parties offer no solution. Apart from criticism, they are incapable of offering and implementing a positive programme, Sobotka said.

The centrist VV formed a government with the Civic Democrats (ODS) and TOP 09 after the mid-2010 elections, but it switched to opposition as a result of internal and coalition turbulences last spring.

Expedient political entities are eager to gain power and money and they are capable of coming up with all sorts of populist programmes, Sobotka continued.

"Many political parties have forgotten the real sense of their existence, they have strayed from everyday reality," he said.

Some parties have let themselves be privatised by business groups and paralysed by corruption. As a result, they have declined and people have lost interest in them, Sobotka said.

"Social Democracy is now the only consolidated political force that is capable of ruling the country," Sobotka added.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz