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Abstract
This paper compares the development in four Central European parliaments (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia) in the second decade after the fall of communism. At the end of the first decade, the four parliaments could be considered stabilised, functional, independent and internally organised institutions. Attention is paid particularly to the changing institutional context and pressure of ‘Europeanisation’, the changing party strengths, and the functional and political consequences of these changes. Parliaments have been transformed from primary legislative to mediating and supervisory bodies. Though Central European parliaments have become stable in their structure and formal rules as well as in their professionalisation, at the end of the second decade their stability was threatened.
Acknowledgements
Work on this paper was supported by research project No. 407/07/1395 ‘The Europeanisation of Political Representation in the Czech Republic’, granted by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic. The author is grateful to Petra Rakusanova Guasti and Drago Zajc for valuable comments and help. Many thanks also to Jessie Hronesova and Krzysztof Kasianiuk for their kind help. Grateful thanks are due for the data and expert judgements provided by Danica Fink-Hafner, Alenka Krašovec, Gabriella Ilonszki, Drago Zajc, Krzysztof Kasianiuk, and Michael Edinger.
Notes
The Schengen Area comprises the territories of 25 European countries (2010) that have implemented the Schengen Agreement signed in 1985. Schengen cooperation has been incorporated into the European Union legal framework by the Treaty of Amsterdam, 1997. The Schengen Area operates very much like a single state for international travel with border controls for travellers moving in and out of the area, but with no internal border controls; it represents a territory where the free movement of persons is guaranteed.
Unaffiliated deputy Miloš Melčák interposed a complaint to the Constitutional Court about the decision of the President to proclaim early elections and proposed to repeal a Constitutional Act, shortening the term. The Constitutional Court granted this request. After this, the parliamentary parties had to come to a consensus on how to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies and enable the early elections. They were not able to agree and the chance to stage early elections fell through, in the middle of the election campaign and just one month before the scheduled date.
http://www.bertelsmann-transformation-index].de/fileadmin/pdf/Gutachten_BTI_2008/ECSE/Hungary.pdf
The change reinforced the majority elements of the electoral system and thereby ensured the advantageousness of the Election Act for larger parties. The number of electoral districts was increased to 35; mandates were divided up according to the d'Hondt divisor, whose first number was raised from 1 to 1.42; and the legal thresholds were increased to ten per cent for two-party coalitions, 15 per cent for three-party coalitions, and 20 per cent for coalitions of four or more parties. The Constitutional Court, based on a petition by the President of the Republic, cancelled those provisions that changed the mechanics of the voting system with the exception of the legal thresholds for coalitions (for more information about the reform, see Novák et al. Citation2005).
The practical consequences of the chosen method of redistribution of votes can be demonstrated in the allotment of seats after the 2006 elections, where the parties that later formed the governing coalition (ODS, KDU-ČSL and SZ) received 200,000 votes, that is, more than the opposition parties, but both camps in the end received equally 100 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
In the Czech Republic, the share of lost votes has increased from 6 per cent in 2006 to 18.8 per cent in the 2010 elections.
TOP 09 – Tradice, Odpovědnost, Prosperita (tradition, responsibility, prosperity) with support of mayors was officially founded in November 2009 and belongs to the youngest subjects on the Czech political landscape.
VV – Věci Veřejné – Public Affairs calling itself the party of direct democracy, was founded in 2001 and active at a local level. The party is unpredictable in many areas and has a rather populist character.
http://www.vlada.cz/en/ppov/lrv/uvod-en-24877/ (accessed 8 October 2010).
In the Czech Republic the Social Democrats have a quota of 20 per cent women for their participation in ballots, and the Green Party has in its Nomination Rules support of equal opportunity.
Professionalism also in the sense of mandate perception, see Rakušanová and Mansfeldová Citation(2008).
The Czech electoral system uses fixed candidate lists, but it is possible to use preferential votes. In the years 1990–1998 each voter had four preferential votes, in the years 2002–6 the possibility was restricted to two preferential votes. In 2006 there was an amendment to election law No. 480/2006 Coll., which increased the number of preferential notes again to four and decreased the gain of such votes necessary for pushing the candidate forward on the party list from 7 per cent to 5 per cent. This new arrangement was used first in parliamentary elections in May 2010.
‘Volime 4 ze zadu’, http://www.4zezadu.cz
The existence of a law defining the principles of transactions and contacts internally between the two chambers is mentioned in the Constitution in Chapter 2, Art. 41, but the Act has not yet been adopted.
