Prague - No ruling coalition in the Czech Republic has ever suffered a worse defeat in regional elections than the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and TOP 09 did this weekend.
The two parties received a total of 19 percent of votes (12.3 percent for the ODS and 6.6 percent for TOP 09).
The second worst result was 27 percent of votes won by the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) and the Christian Democrats in the 2004 regional elections.
Jan Fisher leads in presidential election polls
Prague sees largest anti-government protest since 1997
This weekend, the senior government ODS received 12.3 percent of votes. The party won in only one of the Czech Republic's regions - the Plzen Region. Ironically, the party's electoral list in the region was headed by former minister Jiri Pospisil, dismissed four months ago by PM Petr Necas (ODS) for incompetence.
TOP 09 received 6.6 percent of votes.
Even though the opposition CSSD has won the regional elections with a total 23.6 of votes, its triumph has a bitter taste. No party has ever won regional elections in the Czech Republic with such a low percentage of votes.
Surprisingly, the CSSD defended its dominance in nine regions, including the Central Bohemian Region. This means that the David Rath corruption case caused less damage to the party's reputation than expected.
Deputies allow criminal prosecution of David Rath
The Communist Party gained 20.4 percent of votes, which is 0.7 percentage point less from the record 21.1 percent the party had received in the 2000 regional elections. The Communist Party won in the Usti nad Labem and Karlovy Vary regions.
After the electoral results were published, the website of the Communist Party's Hradec Kralove organization was hacked by the activist group Anonymous who called the party's voters "half-witted idiots".
In total, the two left-wing parties gained 44 percent of votes - 7 percentage points less than in the last regional elections.
In spite of this, the two parties managed to maintain their dominance in the left spectrum of Czech politics. Milos Zeman's SPOZ and Jiri Paroubek's LEV 21 enjoyed only marginal electoral success.
The elections' secret winner are the Christian Democrats, who received 9.9 percent of votes. This is slightly more than in the last regional elections which took place before the party suffered an internal split in which a part of its members led by Miroslav Kalousek left the party and founded TOP 09.
Now, the Christian Democrats beat TOP 09 in nine regions.
Smaller regional parties were successful too, with the Mayors for the Liberec Region party wining in its respective constituency.
