Prague/Liberec/České Budějovice - The Green Party can expect a tumultuous weekend: it has to decide first, whether to continue to be part of the ruling coalition and second, and more important, how to hold "greener" positions in it.
Many members will be travelling to the party congress to demand changes in their representatives' conduct towards the government.
This was started by the forthcoming resignation of the Education Minister Dana Kuchtová who announced last week she would be leaving her office.
The reasons she gave for her decision were criticism of the way she was dealing with European programmes preparation and unprecedented pressure from politicians, including the Prime Minsiter Mirek Topolánek.
Time to leave?
"We want to discuss both under what conditions and whether we want to stay in this coalition at all," the Greens in Liberec say; and they have support from many other regional branches.
There is no immediate threat of ending the existing alliance between the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), Christian Democratic Czech People's Party (KDU-ČSL) and the Greens.
On Monday evening, the influential voice of the Green parliamentary faction leader Kateřina Jacques joined those asking for the coalition to continue.
Nevertheless, the smallest party in the coalition will undoubtedly try to rebalance the "unequal relations" with its partners in the government.
"Maybe we will be the only ones demanding to leave the coalition but we want to get the issue on the table. Just saying we would like to debate things would bring no results nothing would happen," the chairman of Liberec branch Mr Jan Korytář told Aktuálně.cz.
Mr Jiří Guth, the leader of Ms Kuchtová's South Bohemian branch of the party, also wants to debate either the changes in the coalition agreement or leaving the coalition.
"Personally, I think the demand is both legitimate and reasonable, although we did not yet have a ballot on the issue," he said in an interview for Aktuálně.cz.
Brickbats for Bursík
The "changes in the conduct towards the coalition" as demanded by the grass-roots of the party can be read as criticism of the Greens' leader, Mr Martin Bursík. The Liberec party organisation doesn't want a repeat of a forced resignation with other Green Party ministers.
"It's not acceptable to be pressured by our partners to have somebody resign without solid grounds or grave criminal suspicions, and to have the leader yield without resistance," Mr Korytář said.
"Should this kind of things go on, it would be preferable to leave the coalition," his branch's deputy leader Miroslav Lomič adds.
The Greens are not happy with Mr Bursík's handling of the case he did, they say, "too little" to defend Ms Kuchtová. Moreover, they don't like the way their leaders are implementing the Party program in the government.
"The government would talk about nuclear power all the time and we'd keep quiet, nothing would happen. The expenditure for education is being cut, the budget for building motorways is going up. It's completely against our program," Mr Korytář explains.
"So far we have no concise analysis available of the way our clauses in the coalition agreement are being fulfilled, but some of the South Bohemia branch members deduce from what is available that our Party cannot be satisfied," Mr Guth added.
