Czech election brings big political shake-up

Czech center-right parties are beginning talks on forming a coalition government, after their surprising success in the polls this weekend. They have promised severe budget cuts to trim the country's growing deficit.

What a difference a day makes.

For the past six months, the center-left Social Democrats - led by the abrasive Jiri Paroubek - had been riding high in the opinion polls, heading for what most surveys predicted would be a clear victory: 30 percent, maybe more.

On the actual day, though, it was rather different. And on Sunday, Czechs woke to the prospect of having the strongest government in years after one of the biggest political shake-ups since Czechoslovakia split in 1993.

Pyrrhic victory

There were gasps of surprise at the party's Lidovy Dum headquarters on Saturday when Czech television released exit polls showing the Social Democrats tied in first place with the Civic Democrats, both at 20 percent. But surprise turned to despair as the results came in.

In the end, Paroubek's party scored 22 percent - still the largest party, but a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one.

Paroubek resigned almost immediately, conceding it was clear the country was heading for a center-right coalition. Plans to create a minority Social Democrat adminstration propped up by the Communist Party lay in tatters. Voters, it appears, had rejected his plans to tax the rich and preserve generous social benefits.

"It seems that people have chosen the direction the country should go in and it is a different direction than the one the Social Democrats were offering,” Paroubek told reporters, his new wife standing by his side.

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Opinion polls were showing the Green/Environmental candidate challenging for the top spot. Instead the right wing defense minister crushed him.