Former Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Jana Maláčová became the new chairperson of Social Democracy (SOCDEM). She was elected by the delegates of the Saturday convention in Hradec Králové. Former Minister for Human Rights and Equal Opportunities and Senator Jiří Dienstbier and representative of Prague 12 Petr Hůla also applied for the post of chairman. The current head of the party, Michal Šmarda, did not run in the elections due to the party’s unsuccessful results.
Maláčová won in the first round of the election, receiving 101 votes out of 139 valid votes. Dienstbier received 33 votes and Hůla five votes. There are a total of 152 delegates at the convention. The term of office is three years.
Maláčová’s main task will be to return the party to the Chamber of Deputies in next year’s elections. SOCDEM has been below the five percent threshold in surveys for a long time. In her candidate speech, Maláčová stated that her goal is to build a broad left-wing coalition for the parliamentary elections, “which will prevent further impoverishment of people”. Her role model is the French left-wing group New People’s Front.
She told the delegates that in the event of building a left-wing alliance, the Social Democrats will not run on the KSČM candidate list. “If such an alliance can be negotiated, I can guarantee you that we will never merge with the Communist Party,” she said.
Maláčová after winning the post of president of SOCDEM (source: ČT24)
The congress elected Lubomír Zaorálek, former foreign minister and leader of SOCDEM in the June European elections, as the statutory vice-chairman. He received 100 votes out of 135 valid votes. He was the only candidate. The delegates elected lawyer and city councilor Jiří Oliva, teacher Jiří Nedvěd from Kutná Hora and the current chairman of the party’s control commission Radek Scherfer from Kadana in North Bohemia as regular vice-chairmen. Former MP Ondřej Veselý became the new chairman of the control commission.
The issue of cooperation with the KSČM
By doing so, Maláčová responded to Dienstbier’s previous words that he allegedly wanted to form a coalition with the KSČM. “We learned that she is going to create an anti-system leftist coalition under the leadership of herself and (KSČM chairperson) Katerina Konečná,” said Dienstbier. This is also why, as he said, he decided at the last minute to run for SOCDEM chairman. Maláčová later stated that Dienstbier did not understand her words about copying the French model.
The Social Democrats still have in force the so-called Bohumin Resolution from 1995, which prohibits the party from cooperating with the Communists. The resolution prohibits cooperation with extremist parties, specifically naming the KSČM.
On Saturday, Maláčová described a possible revision of the Bohumín resolution as a premature question that is not on the table. According to her, SOCDEM does not know at the moment in which formation it will go to the elections. “We are at a stage where we are wondering if we will try to negotiate an alliance that will prevent people from becoming destitute. The moment we start with it and know the result, we will decide on the next steps,” she declared.
According to her, it is also premature to consider whether the Social Democrats will go to the parliamentary elections under their brand. “There are a number of steps ahead of us, now we will focus on the party, then on tactics to get back to the benches,” she said.
According to Maláčová, SOCDEM will appear as a force critical of the government. “We want this government to end in the elections next year. It puts us in huge debt, people are worse off. It is responsible for the huge drop in living standards in the Czech Republic,” Maláčová claims. She identified work with the membership as important, and wants to restore the party’s expert commission.
SOCDEM status
Šmarda declared at the congress that the main success of his time at the head of SOCDEM was the financial stabilization of the party. “We took over the party at a time when it had almost a quarter of a billion in debt and owed another 140 million crowns to its own subsidiary Cíl. Today it is in the black and has a positive balance in the accounts and we can say that we do not owe any money,” he said. According to him, the party currently has an account balance of 18 million crowns.
On the contrary, SOCDEM’s electoral result in this year’s European elections was the worst in history, receiving only less than two percent of the vote. Šmarda accepted responsibility for this and decided not to run for party leadership. “It was a shameful result that we could not have imagined,” he admitted. According to him, the pre-election strategy was flawed.
Šmarda also stopped at the decline of SOCDEM members. This has continued in recent years and today the party has less than five thousand members. “But the good news is that recently young people have been coming to us,” says the former chairman.
