The Green Party - Strana Zelenych
The Green Party was founded in 1990 and had some early success, sending three members to Parliament in 1992. Since then, they struggled until Martin Bursik took over as party Chairman and led the Greens to parliamentary success in the 2006 elections, in which the Greens won six seats in Parliament. Electoral gridlock and a coalition stalemate eventually resulted in the Greens participating in a center-right coalition government with ODS and KDU-CSL and gaining four ministerial positions. Ironically, TOP 09's Karel Schwarzenberg, though not a member of the Green Party, became Foreign Minister under this coalition government as a Green Party candidate. The Greens chose their party chairman, Martin Bursik, as Minister of Environment and Ondrej Liska, deputy chairman, as Minister of Education.
On 5-7 September 2008, an extraordinary congress of the Czech Green Party featured a battle over the party leadership and over the overall direction of the party. Current party chair Martin Bursik was reelected and succeeded in having his opponents removed from the party leadership. However, the party remains deeply divided over personal and ideological issues. Bursik,s reelection assures the continued participation of the Greens in the governing coalition for the near future and avoids a cabinet reshuffle. Yet the Greens, internal problems suggested that the governing of the current coalition will continue to be difficult and parliamentary politics would be complex.
While Bursik left the congress personally strengthened, the party's division into two wings remained very sharp and personal animosities remained strong. However, the friction in the party went far beyond just personal animosities. Bursik supported crucial health care and pension reforms advocated by senior coalition partner ODS. He was also close to the ODS on missile defense. Unlike the radicals in the party, he believed that the ability of the Green Party to implement its program had been proportionate to its six percent result in the last parliamentary elections.
On the other hand, Kuchtova and the young radicals backing her were fierce opponents of missile defense and more to the left on social and health care issues. They strongly criticized Bursik for not being able to push more Green Party priorities through the cabinet. They were generally disappointed with what they perceived as the Greens, low-level participation in the ODS-led coalition government and suggested withdrawal. The congress did nothing to narrow the political gap between the two wings.
The split in the party and a disastrous showing in the June 2009 European Parliament elections caused party leader Martin Bursik to step down as Chairman right after the EU elections. Ondrej Liska was appointed party Chairman and spent the first 45 days of his tenure trying to unify the party. His efforts had been somewhat successful. At the Green Party congress on December 5, Liska was elected the Green Party Chairman by a vote of 170 out of 252. Although an endorsement of Liska, the vote showed the continuing and consistent ideological split in the party. Roughly two-thirds are realistic pragmatists who believed the party needed to be involved in government to promote the green agenda, while roughly one-third were dogmatic idealists who believed the party should push its agenda from outside the government. As Chairman, Liska laid out his party's priorities: combating corruption through campaign finance reform and tightening public tender regulations; promoting a pro-EU policy; and keeping the Communists out of government. The Greens also believed that energy security is a priority and were no longer categorically opposed to nuclear energy.
Even though Greens did not make it into the Parliament in May 2010, they are "in it for the long run." They continued to engage on issues important to the Greens and will seek to gain electoral representation in the Senate and local elections in 2010. Money, however, was an issue. The Greens were living on state money as loans become impossible to secure as long as the Greens show little chance of winning seats in Parliament. Martin Bursik, the charismatic former Green Chairman, has also hinted at remaining in politics but his role was unclear. Bursik will not challenge Liska for leadership of the Greens in the future but will still run in the same multi-seat Prague district as Schwarzenberg.
The Green Party gained support from voters who are dissatisfied with the leadership and behavior of the right-of-center Civic Democrats (ODS) and dislike Jiri Paroubek from the Social Democrats (CSSD). Although the Greens won 6.3 percent of the vote in the 2006 parliamentary elections, their performance in the European Parliament elections and the internal bickering caused their support to dissipate. The Greens consistently polled around three percent in 2009 and were losing the protest vote to TOP 09.
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