ANO, SPD and Motorists have agreed on the program. Okamura is to lead the Chamber of Deputies

ANO, SPD and Motorists have finally agreed on the program of the emerging government coalition, announced Karel Havlíček (ANO) after a meeting of representatives of all three parties, saying that they have no disagreements. They will present the program on Monday, November 3, when they will also sign a coalition agreement. They also announced that their candidate for Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies will be SPD leader Tomio Okamura. Motorists will nominate their MP Jiří Barták for Deputy Speaker of the Chamber.

Representatives of the emerging coalition will hand over the program statement to President Petr Pavel de facto at the same time as it is published, i.e. on Monday, Havlíček announced after the meeting. Representatives of the parties will also sign the coalition agreement on Monday at 1:00 p.m. President Pavel has called a session of the new Chamber of Deputies for the same day.

"We have no contradictions there. We have clarified some essentials and we can state at this point that it is definitely 100 percent complete," Havlíček said of the program. According to him, the last points that the leaders of the parties and movements discussed on Wednesday were not essential, they were about clarifying some essentials. "It was nothing that would divide the coalition," he said without giving details. YES, the SPD and the Motorists were able to fulfill the main visions of their programs in the statement, according to him.

"There are no contradictions. The debate was very professional, factual, and positive," said SPD chairman Tomio Okamura. Motorists' leader Petr Macinka also described the meeting as factual and effective.

According to an earlier statement by ANO leader Andrej Babiš, there were still some points to be finalized in the negotiations between ANO, SPD and Motorists on the program statement. On Monday, he said that the entities of the emerging three-party coalition had disagreed on two or three points of the statement, but did not provide details.

"There are certain indications that the disagreements could concern the Ministry of the Environment and this agenda or the economy," said ČT editor Ondřej Pražák earlier, adding that in the case of the economy, electronic sales records (EET) could be considered. "ANO wants to restore this across the board, while Motoristé, on the other hand, reported that they would like to introduce EET only for the largest entrepreneurs," he added before the end of Wednesday's meeting, adding that nothing has been confirmed yet and that these are just speculations and inferences based on indications from representatives of ANO, SPD and Motoristé.

Motorists are not looking for a replacement for the Turk

When asked by journalists whether the Motorists insist on nominating Filip Turk as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Macinka stated after Wednesday's meeting that Turk had significantly contributed to the foreign policy chapter in the program statement of the future coalition and that the Motorists are not looking for a replacement for him.

According to Deník N, the Turk has repeatedly published racist or homophobic posts on Facebook in the past and numerous allusions to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. He apologized for the criticized statements, but denies authorship of some of them and the party has filed a criminal complaint. Deník N stands behind the article and believes that the police will investigate all the circumstances of the case.

"We will only comment on the government names when the final list is available. The president will be introduced to it first," said Havlíček. "The consensus for the SPD is that we do not want to interfere in the nominations of other political parties," added Okamura.

New leadership of the Chamber of Deputies

Representatives of the emerging three-party coalition also discussed proposals for filling the leadership of the Chamber of Deputies. The coalition of ANO, SPD and Motorists will nominate SPD leader Tomi Okamura for the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, confirmed ANO Deputy Chairwoman Alena Schillerová after Wednesday's meeting. Okamura will have an opponent in the secret ballot at the constituent meeting next week. The People's Party announced that they will nominate former Deputy Chairwoman of the Lower House, Jan Bartošek.

The number of deputy speakers of the Chamber of Deputies should decrease by two to four compared to the previous election period. ANO announced the nomination of Patrik Nacher, who should subsequently be the first deputy speaker of the lower house. Motorists will nominate their MP Jiří Barták for the position of deputy speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, their chairman Macinka announced on Wednesday.

Two deputy speaker positions will go to the parties of the future opposition, namely ODS and STAN. The Civic Democrats want to nominate Jan Skopeček again, while the STAN movement announced the nomination of the chairman and current Minister of the Interior Vít Rakušan. However, his membership in the current government prevents him from taking over the Chamber's position. Schillerová pointed out that the matter has no other solution than for the deputy speaker's seat to remain vacant for the time being.

According to her, the leaders of the emerging coalition have taken note of the opposition nominations and have not commented on them at this time. The clubs will consider the proposals, and the vote will be secret, said the ANO deputy chairwoman.

Committee positions

Representatives of the emerging three-party coalition were also supposed to discuss proposals for chairmen of parliamentary committees or commissions on Wednesday, but unlike the future opposition, they have not yet officially announced their nominees. Schillerová said that the proposals still need to be discussed in the clubs. ANO is to meet for this before the next meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, which will begin on November 11. The Motorists' faction will meet to discuss the nominations on Monday, according to chairman Boris Šťastný.

According to previous information, ANO is to fill the chairs of the foreign, health and agriculture committees, as well as the environment committee and the mandate and immunity committee.

The SPD is to fill the chairmanship position of the economic, petition and organizational committee, which is always headed by the speaker of the Chamber. Okamura previously noted that it would be logical for the Chamber's economic committee to be led by SPD deputy chairman Radim Fiala.

Motorists should be given the chairmanship of the budget and constitutional-legal committees; according to information from ČTK, the nominees could be economist Vladimír Pikora and former Supreme State Prosecutor Renata Vesecká.

ODS is to lead the security, European and control committees. KDU-ČSL is to lead the media and social committee, TOP 09 the school committee, and the STAN movement should lead the defense committee and the public administration committee.

"Effective House of Representatives"

Representatives of the emerging three-party coalition also discussed possible changes to the rules of procedure of the Chamber of Deputies, which should lead to a reduction in possible obstructions.

Schillerová said that the proposal is based on the ideas of the outgoing government coalition from the previous election period. "We have agreed on the fundamental things," she noted. According to Havlíček, the new coalition will debate amendments to the legal rules for the lower house's negotiations with the future opposition. "There is no extra time pressure there," he added.

The lower house of parliament's proceedings over the past four years, when ANO and SPD were in opposition, were often blocked by their obstruction, and some meetings dragged on late into the night or even into the following days. Babiš and SPD chairman Okamura gave lengthy speeches.

"It was primarily the ending government coalition that most often raised the topic of the need to change the rules of procedure. And paradoxically, it was rather the deputies from ANO and SPD who often spoke openly about obstructing, about deliberately delivering long speeches. In some cases, these were speeches that were not directly related to the given topic, that is, to a topic with which they disagreed. Now it is again the representatives of ANO and SPD who are talking about the need to simplify the proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies, to make them more predictable," summarized the editor of ČT Pražák.

In a speech in the Chamber of Deputies in June, President Pavel called for reflection on whether it is not time to cultivate and adjust the rules of parliamentary discussion.

The intention to push through a change in the rules of procedure of the Chamber of Deputies was announced at the beginning of the holidays by the chairman of the ODS and outgoing Prime Minister Petr Fiala, and the Pirates also promise a more functional parliament through changes to the rules of procedure. Before the elections, the STAN movement also advocated for the amendment.

The change of the rules of procedure has been discussed since the beginning of the last election period, but the parties have not reached a conclusion. The parliamentary amendments to the rules of procedure, which were aimed at reducing obstruction and increasing the efficiency of negotiations, fell by the wayside with the elections and the end of the mandate of the current legislators.

Experts would welcome the changes

"There is no doubt that it would be appropriate to amend the rules of procedure of the Chamber of Deputies so that it becomes a functional body," said political scientist Ladislav Cabada from the Metropolitan University of Prague. "The last Chamber was extreme in the length of some meetings, where the issue was to approve the program of the next meeting. If this is limited, it will certainly be appropriate," added Anna Shavit from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University.

"It is, of course, slightly laughable that this is now being promoted by parties that very intensively used the opportunity to obstruct and drag out all negotiations and hold very long meetings, where things did not move anywhere," said the political scientist.

Shavit believes that the changes to the rules of procedure that the emerging coalition wants to submit could also be supported by the parties of the outgoing government, i.e. the future opposition, "if they are good and substantive comments." But Cabada is not sure that an agreement will be reached.

“The rules of procedure in a form that allows for blocking or obstructionist activity will always suit the opposition more than the government,” Cabada said. “In the last four years, there has been a deep gap between the government parties and the parties that formed the opposition in the Chamber, and it does not seem to me that the situation is different now.”

Reaction of the future opposition

Some representatives of the future opposition are indicating that they are willing to support certain changes to the rules of procedure. According to the chairman of the ODS parliamentary group, Marek Benda, the changes should limit endless obstruction, especially before the start of the meeting. "If they come up with something like that, I will definitely be in favor," he told Czech Television.

The People's Party would like the rules of procedure of the Chamber of Deputies not to allow blocking the chamber when drafting a program, said Environment Minister Petr Hladík (KDU-ČSL) on Wednesday.

"(The change) should primarily affect the beginning of the Chamber's session week. We think that what the ANO movement demonstrated here, that they did not let the program be approved for a day or two, that they talked all the time, is wrong," said Hladík. He could also imagine changes in interpellations. According to him, the amendment must allow the majority to assert what it wants, but at the same time must not limit the discussion and allow the parliamentary minority to clearly express its opinion.

According to the Minister of Health, Vlastimil Válek (TOP 09), any changes to the rules of procedure will not help anything if deputies do not respect the unwritten rules and behave decently. 

Source: ČT24