PRAGUE: The Czech government faces a no-confidence motion next week launched by the left-wing opposition over the premier’s decision to endorse a presidential amnesty freeing thousands of prisoners.
The no-confidence motion is scheduled for Thursday, the Parliamentary website said yesterday.
The motion will come ahead of a likely second round of the country’s first direct presidential election, due Jan. 25-26.
Decreed by outgoing President Vaclav Klaus on Jan.1, the amnesty has so far freed more than 6,000 prisoners, over a quarter of the total number, including some jailed or on trial in major fraud cases.
“The amnesty will free the masterminds of big business cases including asset-stripping at banks and companies, privatization fraud or tax evasion worth billions,” said Bohuslav Sobotka, chairman of the opposition Social Democrats, who launched the no-confidence motion.
They need at least 101 votes in the 200-seat Parliament to bring down Necas’s three-party coalition, which has so far survived seven confidence votes since taking office in July 2010.
Although backing for his government has dwindled to 98 votes from an initial 118, the austerity-minded Necas has survived by relying on the support of former allies now sitting as independents.
Necas’s latest test came in November when he survived a bid by rebels within his own party to bring him down over a tax bill.
Klaus’s second and last five-year term expires on March 7. His successor will be elected in the country’s first direct presidential election whose first round ended yesterday.
The sweeping presidential amnesty, granted to mark the 20th anniversary of former Czechoslovakia’s split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, applied mostly to prisoners serving terms of less than a year and those over 75 who had sentences under 10 years.
It also cut short legal proceedings that have lasted over eight years, provided that the maximum possible sentence is not over 10 years.
An ex-communist country of 10.5 million people, the Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004.
Czech government faces no-confidence vote January 17
