Electoral Panorama / Panorama Electoral

Czech President Václav Klaus announced yesterday that elections to the Chamber of Deputies - the lower house of the Central European country's bicameral Parliament - will be held next May 28 and 29.

In March of last year, the Czech Republic's center-right coalition government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek collapsed after losing a parliamentary vote of confidence, and the country was to hold an early legislative election the following October. In the meantime, President Klaus appointed an interim government headed by Jan Fischer, the non-party chairman of the Czech Statistical Office.

I wrote a piece for Global Economy Matters about the cabinet crisis, titled Topolánek's toppling leads to early Czech election, but as it was the early vote never materialized: last September, the Constitutional Court struck down the law which reduced the length of the Chamber's term. Both houses of Parliament then passed a constitutional amendment to allow an early election to be held the following November, but the dissolution vote failed after the main opposition party, the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) had a change of heart and decided to oppose it, along with the Communists and the Greens.

Parliamentary Elections in the Czech Republic - Elections to the Chamber of Deputies has an overview of the Czech electoral system, as well as lower house election results since 1996.