Christian and Democratic Union - Czechoslovak People's Party
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Template:Politics of the Czech Republic The Christian and Democratic Union - Czechoslovak People's Party (in Czech: Křesťanská a demokratická unie - Československá strana lidová or KDU-ČSL, also known under short name lidovci) is the Christian democratic political party in the Czech Republic.
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History
During end of 19th century Catholics in Bohemia and Moravia joined political movements. Christian-Socialist Party was set up in September 1894 in Litomyšl. Catholic National Party in Moravia was set up in September 1896 in Přerov.
In January 1919 in Prague Československá strana lidová (ČSL) was created, uniting other catholic parties. Jan Šrámek was selected as chairman. In 1921 ČSL entered the government and has stayed there for most of the time since, no matter how the political situation changed.
After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany Jan Šrámek served as head of Czechoslovak government in exile (in Britain). After 1945 the party was part of the national-unity government. When communists took over all power in February 1948 many ČSL officials were imprisoned. The party lost any real influence and was kept as a de-facto played puppet of communists (see National Front). In turn it was allowed to keep a token presence of ČSL in government until 1989.
After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 ČSL attempted to shed its compromised figures and policies of the past: this included a change of name in 1992 after the merger with the Christian Democratic Union movement (which was a post-revolution attempt at more modern political Catholicism trying to emulate the German CDU, but lacking the strength of its traditional counterpart). KDU-ČSL was part of the governments of Václav Klaus's Civic Democratic Party (ODS) until its ministers left in autumn 1997 which triggered the government's fall; KDU-ČSL was also represented in the caretaker government of Josef Tošovský before the premature elections in 1998.
Current Situation
KDU-ČSL has relatively low but stable support of voters (6-10%); it is strongest in the traditionally Catholic rural areas in Moravia. Historically, it is a mass party with about 50,000 members (second after the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia); most of them are of old age, however, and recruitment of new members can't keep the membership numbers from declining. The influence of the party is rather bigger than that, as it tries - so far rather successfully - to take advantage of the fragmented Czech political situation and make itself a necessary part of any coalition, whether the winning big party be left- or right-wing.
Like other parties in the Czech Republic, KDU-ČSL has not been spared corruption scandals. Most of these are related to the period of the 1990s when it was in charge of the Ministry of Defense.
In June 2002 KDU-ČSL went into the elections on a joint ballot with the Freedom Union - Democratic Union) (US-DEU) as the "Two-Coalition", which was the last remnant of an unsuccesful attempt to unite them with two smaller parties into the "Four-Coalition" which would provide an alternative to the practices of the "opposition agreement" of ODS and Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD). However it turned out that the KDU-ČSL's traditional voters identified much more strongly with their original party than the whole, unlike US-DEU's liberal city ones, and using preferential votes on evenly split ballots caused that KDU-ČSL gained 22 MPs to US-DEU's 9 even though both parties were of roughly equal strength. They entered the government again by forming a coalition with the winning Czech Social Democratic Party.
The current party leader is Miroslav Kalousek (since November 2003); unlike his predecessor Cyril Svoboda he represents the right wing of KDU-ČSL favouring cooperation with ODS, which has been a source of tension within the coalition. He refused to enter the government both after his election and the government’s reconstruction after PM Vladimír Špidla’s resignation, and finally on February 19, 2005 asked for the resignation of PM Stanislav Gross after his finance scandal broke out. Gross retaliated by threatening to remove KDU-ČSL from his cabinet; a government crisis ensues.
See also
External Links
- Official website (in Czech) (http://www.kdu.cz/)
- English pages (http://zahranicni.kdu.cz/ENGLISH/default.htm)cs:Křesťanská a demokratická unie - Československá strana lidová