Kalousek has been facing the question of whether he will found a new political party for a long time. “I will not speculate about it publicly,” he told Novinkám. “As a voter, I say that I am sorry that there is no power here that has a comprehensible, competent economic policy,” he added.
According to him, the current government parties, i.e. ODS, KDU-ČSL, TOP 09 and STAN, do not seek to consolidate public finances. “The structural deficit next year will be roughly the same as this year. If it is to be the same, consolidation has basically stopped,” he noted.
According to Kalouska, there is time for the creation of a new party by January, because the elections to the House of Representatives will be held in autumn next year. He estimates that in order to found the party, however, it would be necessary to get “tens of millions” of crowns from sponsors or sympathizers.
Photo: Stanislava Benešová, Novinky
Sociologist Martin Buchtík
Looking for the one “who did not disappoint”
The director of STEM Buchtík also perceives the demand for a new party, even in the right part of the political spectrum, where there are plenty of subjects. The problem, however, is that the government parties of Petr Fiala’s cabinet (ODS) have disappointed many voters, only two percent of voters “definitely trust” the government.
Through the eyes of Saša Mitrofanov: Two pilgrims in the political desert
Comments
“We see that there is a lot of demand from the voters for someone who has not ‘disappointed’. Many voters feel that they have no one to vote for. With every subject he feels he has failed him or is unelectable. We can see in the data that there is a clear space for a new political entity to succeed if it is financially covered, has a communication strategy and has a few big personalities,” noted Buchtík.
If the new party met all the conditions, it could reach up to 10 percent of the voters.
Questionnaire
Would you welcome a new right-wing party on the Czech political scene?
A total of 9273 readers voted.
“But it cannot be ruled out that if she has media attention, people will talk about her, she will get significantly more. There were examples of the YES, Public Affairs movement,” noted Buchtík.
ANO still had zero support in pre-election polls in the autumn of 2012 and did not even appear in the list of parties, while in the 2013 elections it won 18.6 percent. Three years before, Public Affairs recorded a great growth, when in March 2010 it hovered below the five percent mark in the polls, and in the fall of 2010 it gained almost 11 percent.
However, the new party may not succeed at all. “First of all, not all voters will agree on one new entity. Part of that demand is also able to be met by Motorists, who now have around three percent,” noted Buchtík.
If the party was co-founded by Kalousek, he could try to reach out to former voters of TOP 09, which at its peak in 2013 had almost 12 percent of voters, while today it is around five percent in surveys. There is a question as to whether voters would be attracted to Kalousek, as the party fell to five percent in 2017, when he chaired it.
“One year before the elections, it’s fortune-telling from a crystal ball,” Buchtík concluded.
Kalousek slandered Fial’s cabinet with words about responsible socialist governments
Home
