Prague - The new technocratic government of Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok was sworn in by President Milos Zeman today, in spite of the strong opposition of virtually all political parties in the lower chamber.
The controversy stems from the fact that President Zeman decided to appoint a technocratic prime minister even though the senior ruling ODS alleged it had secured the support of a majority of deputies for the continuation of its center-right coalition government. The left wing opposition parties, Social Democrats (CSSD) and Communist Party, preferred an early election. The previous center-right government resigned over a spying scandal of the PM's top aide in June.
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"I think we are now at a crossroads, we can continue to go down the path of the parliamentary democracy, as we are used to do, or we can head towards some kind of autocratic presidential system or, as I like to say, a Putin-style regime," said outgoing Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek from the junior government TOP 09 party in an interview for Aktualne.cz.
Rusnok has selected his cabinet mostly from the ranks of Milos Zeman's friends and the pro-Zeman wing of the CSSD. This has also drawn criticism from parliamentary politicians as well as some parts of the public.
Rusnok's second-in-command and finance minister is Jan Fischer, former technocratic PM from 2009 and 2010 and an unsuccessful presidential candidate from January 2013. After it was hinted and eventually confirmed that he would become a technocratic minister, Fischer controversially started to receive huge donations from sponsors that allowed him to pay off entirely a CZK 5 million (EUR 192,000) debt from his presidential campaign - in no more than six days.
Moreover, Rusnok's technocratic government is closely associated with the Czech industrial lobby. Former Trinecke Zelezarny steelmaker executive Jiri Ciencala has been named industry minister in the government. Ciencala even openly said that as minister he will "protect the interests of Czech industrialists." Current Vitkovice Power Engineering CEO Martin Pecina is the new interior minister. Pecina had the same post also in the technocratic government of Jan Fischer.
The new government will have to face a confidence vote in the lower chamber of the Czech parliament in the next 30 days. Even though all the parties objected the appointment of the technocratic government, it is not sure how will they vote.
