Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)

Zsolt Gál: Argentina on the Danube - Populist Economic Policy as the Biggest Enemy of Sustainable Economic Growth

Argentina on the Danube...

Source: Socioekonomická hodnotová orientace české společnosti [Czech Society’s Socio- Economic Value Orientation], Centre for Public Opinion Research, 2002.

The principal difference with respect to Slovakia is that there are more supporters and potential voters of economic right-wing parties in the Czech Republic; in recent years, parliamentary elections (i.e. elections to the House of Representatives) usually produced very similar (or even totally equal) numbers of seats for left-wing and right-wing political parties. The division line between leftist and rightist voters runs somewhere through the middle and splits the electorate into two approximate halves. This was the main reason for interesting government-formation patterns, for instance forming an administration that relied on a majority of one or two votes (sometimes provided by defectors from the opposite camp) or a minority administration that ruled based on an ‘opposition agreement’ concluded with the largest opposition party.

Graph 5

Results of elections to the Czech Parliament’s House of Representatives (1996-2006)

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0

1936 (76.41%) 1998(74,03%) 2002(58%) 2006(64,47%)

Note: The abbreviations in columns refer to political parties, absolute numbers and percentages refer to the total number of valid ballots cast for these parties and their share of the popular vote, and percentages at the bottom of columns refer to voter participation (i.e. the ratio of participating and eligible voters). Party abbreviations: ODS - Civic Democratic Party; KDU-CSL - Christian and Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People’s Party; ODA - Civic Democratic Alliance; US - Freedom Union; SZ - Greens’ Party; CSSD - Czech Social Democratic Party; KSČM - Czech and Moravian Communist Party; Rep. - Alliance for Republic-Czechoslovak Republican Party.

Source: Volební výsledky [Election Results], Czech Statistical Office, 2009.

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