Election date has caused disputes in Czech Republic

• Published in: BBC Monitoring Newsfile p. 1
• Format: Newsletter
• Language: English
• Published: London BBC Worldwide Limited 30.01.2006
• Subjects: Havel, Vaclav (1936-2011); Klaus, Vaclav; Paroubek, Jiri; CZECH

[Vaclav Havel] and [Milos Zeman] agreed that the elections would be held on 14-15 July 2002. Havel originally wanted the election in an earlier term in May so that there would be more time for traditional post- election negotiations. Havel feared that the negotiations and other procedures would end only shortly before the autumn elections to the Senate, the upper house of Czech parliament. But politicians opposed this idea. [Vaclav Klaus], who was then lower house chairman and opposition Civic Democrats (ODS) head, expected the elections to take place in mid- June and said that Havel promoted an earlier date on purpose. Klaus argued that political parties had already had their schedules, connected with their election campaigns, which reckoned that the elections are held in June. In November 1995, President Havel presented to Prime Minister Klaus a proposal to hold two separate elections. The ODS leadership supported Havel's proposal in order to avoid a political crisis but strongly criticized that Havel had not waited for the government to decide upon the issue.