Czech Voters Support Deficit-Cutting Over Welfare Spending in Elections

Bloomberg.com
By Peter Laca and Krystof Chamonikolas - May 30, 2010
The Czech Civic Democratic Party and others that pledged to cut spending won the most votes in parliamentary elections as Czechs chose budget restraint amid the European debt crisis.


The results are a blow to the Social Democratic Party, which campaigned to increase welfare spending. The party led pre-election opinion polls and were the single biggest vote getters at 22.1 percent, according to unofficial results from the Czech Statistical Office in Prague.

The Civic Democrats were second with 20.2 percent, followed by TOP09, with 16.7 percent, and Veci Verejne at 10.9 percent. All three campaigned for spending cuts, indicating they may be able to form a cabinet committed to reducing a deficit that swelled to 5.9 percent of gross domestic product last year, almost twice the European Union limit.

“It’s almost certain that there will be a center-right coalition, which would mean that for the first time since 1996 there will be a government with a strong majority,” said Jiri Pehe, a political analyst and director of New York University in Prague. “It will also be a government that will have a quite coherent right-wing program, a government that wants to make budget savings.”

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