Czech parties agree on technocrat as new PM

CZECH PARTY leaders will ask President Vaclav Klaus to name statistician Jan Fischer as the country’s new prime minister, after agreeing on the formation of a “government of experts” to lead the nation through its presidency of the European Union and prepare it for early elections.

Mr Fischer has been chosen to lead a non-partisan cabinet by the main opposition party and the three centre-right parties that comprised the outgoing government. That coalition was toppled in a parliamentary no-confidence vote last month.

The government’s defeat undermined confidence in Prague’s leadership of the EU during its term as president, which ends on June 30th. It also cast doubt on the fate of the bloc’s Lisbon Treaty, which is yet to be ratified by the largely Eurosceptic upper house of the Czech legislature. All EU members must approve the treaty for it to come into force.

The senate is due to debate the treaty in the coming weeks.

Several Czech politicians and analysts had feared that Mr Klaus – one of the document’s strongest critics – would appoint a like-minded premier to further hamper its progress through parliament.

Mr Klaus indicated yesterday that he would support Mr Fischer’s candidacy, however.

“In principle I am satisfied with this agreement. I think he [Fischer] is a considerate man, who never had any radical political orientation.” He added that he had also reassured European Commission president José Manuel Barroso about Prague’s handling of the EU presidency.

“I assured him that, without doubt, we will manage it,” Mr Klaus said.

Many Czechs were surprised at the speed with which rival political parties struck a deal to support a non-aligned cabinet led by Mr Fischer and to hold a general election in early October, some nine months ahead of schedule.

“Significant progress has been made,” said Pavel Sobisek, an economist at UniCredit Bank in Prague. “This was facilitated by the common interest to all the parties to prevent the president playing his own cards.”

Mr Fischer (58), whose government would take power on May 9th, insisted that he had no political ambitions and sought only to guide the Czech Republic through its EU presidency and to the October elections, while mitigating the damage of the economic downturn.

“I take it as a five-month service, nothing else,” he said, adding that he planned to lead “a government not of visions, but of continuity”.