Czech caretaker government forming arouses concerns

Czech President Milos Zeman appointed Jiri Rusnok as prime minister Tuesday, despite the fact that Mr Rusnok is not a member of parliament, arousing concerns of whether such a choice could help to end the country's political uproar, analysts said Friday. The events of the past two weeks in the Czech Republic have been among the most colorful and tumultuous in the nation's history. Not since 1989 has the country experienced such political upheaval and uncertainty. The demise of the centre-right government that has governed since 2010 came as a shock to the entire country, even though the government, particularly the lead partner of the governing coalition -- the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), is experiencing unprecedented lows in the level of public support. Support for the ODS had fallen to its lowest level in the party's history, even before the political scandal that ultimately cost it government. The corruption scandal, which came to international attention after more than 400 police raided government offices and ministries and resulted in the arrest of seven government-linked figures, including the PM's chief of staff, is of a scale unheard of in the Czech Republic, even in a country bitterly resigned to the bad behavior of people in power. Never before has there been solid proof that corruption reaches the upper echelons of power, though it is generally accepted as a feature of the political system. The eventual arrest of Jana Nagyova, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, resulted in the resignation of the Prime Minister, Petr Necas, and the governing coalition scrambled to form a new government under the leadership of whomever the ODS chose to take Mr Necas's place, which ended up being Miroslava Nemcova, a relatively popular politician whose previous job had been head of the of the House of Representatives. The President, Milos Zeman, during the process of selecting a new leader for the ODS, stated that it was not his desire to go to early elections, but that he would give the parties a chance to form a government if they could assemble a majority. This, however, did not come to pass. Shortly after the coalition had coalesced behind Ms. Nemcova, President Zeman announced that he had his own choice for prime minister, and that he would be pushing ahead with a caretaker government. The President said that he had been elected to stop the unpopular government, and that he could not ignore the voices of his millions of voters, analysts said given although Ms. Nemcova had the requisite 101 votes to form government, President Zeman did not even give her a chance. The President instead appointed Jiri Rusnok as Prime Minister, despite the fact that Mr Rusnok is not a member of parliament. Czech law does not require caretaker governments to have cabinets chosen from current parliamentarians; rather, it is the President's prerogative whom to choose. Mr Zeman and Mr Rusnok were formerly colleagues in the left-oriented Social Democratic Party (CSSD), a party for which Mr Zeman served as Prime Minister and Mr Rusnok served as both Minister of Finance and Minister of Industry and Trade, though both later left the party. Whether the President's choice would help to soften the current crisis, time can tell.