Degree of suspicion: Czech government finally set to take power despite last-minute hitch over qualifications

The Czech Republic’s new five-party coalition government has had a difficult birth, but the resolution of a bitter dispute with controversial president Miloš Zeman which had raised the possibility of a constitutional lawsuit, means the long-awaited new cabinet will finally be named this Friday.

After general elections held on 8-9 October, a coalition of two opposition groups – the three-party Spolu (Together) alliance and a partnership of the Czech Pirate Party with a group of Mayors and Independents – came together to oust billionaire leader Andrej Babiš’s Ano party.

Yet the hospitalisation of Czech president Miloš Zeman just after the vote delayed the transfer of power for weeks, and in recent days another constitutional crisis loomed as Zeman refused to accept incoming prime minister Petr Fiala’s nomination for foreign minister.

With many seeing the arrival of the new regime as a blow against a populist clique formed by Zeman and Babiš in recent years, frustration about the new delay was palpable. But after crunch talks with Fiala on Monday evening, Zeman backed down and agreed to name the new government in its entirety.

Since Zeman contracted Covid-19 shortly after leaving hospital in November, bizarre scenes have seen him holding discussions with ministerial candidates from inside a sealed perspex box.

Yet his refusal to accept Jan Lipavský, a Pirate Party politician, as the nation’s new foreign minister threatened to derail proceedings yet again.

Zeman cited Lipavský’s lukewarm relations with “Visegrád Four” regional partners Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, as well as with long-time ally Israel, as the reasons for his objection. He also raised eyebrows with a sniffy assessment of Lipavský’s supposedly inadequate academic qualifications: unlike other ministerial nominees, Lipavský “only” has a bachelor’s degree, and his university dissertation was “evaluated with the worst possible grade”, Zeman complained.

Even in a country which sets great store by titles, the latter claim met with incredulity. Yet the topic of Lipavský’s offending Bachelor’s thesis – “The politicisation of Russian energy supplies in the case of natural gas” – may offer a clue as to the real reason for Zeman’s disapproval.

Zeman has long been an advocate of stronger Czech relations with the east, supporting Russian involvement in the expansion of the Czech nuclear power sector and lobbying for the approval of the Sputnik V Covid vaccine in the Czech Republic.

The incoming government, on the other hand, was elected on a promise to restore damaged ties with western institutions such as the EU and Nato.

Of all the parties in the new government, the most overtly pro-Western of all is the Pirate Party, of which Lipavský is a member. Opposition to Lipavský may, therefore, have been driven by the president’s fear of a swing away from the east and towards the west in foreign policy – one of the areas in which Zeman believes his presidential role carries a more-than-ceremonial significance.

“By opposing Lipavský, Zeman obviously hoped to keep some influence over foreign policy,” Jiří Pehe, who served as former president Václav Havel’s chief political advisor in the late 1990s, told The Independent.

According to Šárka Prat, the executive director of the Czech Institute for Politics and Society, “personal antipathy” also played a role: Lipavský “was openly critical of Zeman during the election campaign”, she told The Independent.

Prat also says opposition to Lipavský was intended “as a clear message that the president will want to exercise his will as he was accustomed to during the reign of Andrej Babiš”. But the new administration is widely expected to try to curb Zeman’s wider political influence.

Fiala threatened to file a lawsuit with the nation’s constitutional court if Zeman refused to accept all of his ministerial nominations. In eventually caving in to the new prime minister’s demands, it appears the president may be coming to accept the start of the new era.

“Zeman has tried to move the boundaries of the Czech constitutional system from a parliamentary democracy towards a presidential republic. But this will end once the new government, with a solid majority in the house, is named. Unless Zeman gets the chance to name another government before his term ends, he will now be reduced to a bystander,” says Pehe.

The new government still has to pass a confidence vote in the Czech parliament before finally taking over the reins. This is not expected to take place before Christmas – but having at last gained the president’s approval, little else now seems to stand in the way of the change of regime.