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Early legislative elections were held in the Czech Republic on 25 and 26 October 2013, seven months before the constitutional expiry of the elected parliament's four year legislative term. The government elected in May 2010 led by Prime Minister Petr Nečas was forced to resign on 17 June 2013, after a corruption and bribery scandal. A caretaker government led by Prime Minister Jiří Rusnok was then appointed by the President, but narrowly lost a vote of confidence on 7 August, leading to its resignation six days later. The Chamber of Deputies then passed a motion dissolving itself on 20 August, with a call for new elections within 60 days after presidential assent.〔 〕 The President gave his assent on 28 August, scheduling the elections for 25 and 26 October 2013. The two parties gaining the most seats were the Czech Social Democratic Party (50 seats) and the new party ANO 2011 (47 seats). The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia came third, with a 3.6% swing in its favour. The two parties from the previous coalition government who were contesting the election, TOP 09 and the Civic Democratic Party, both lost substantial numbers of seats, to come fourth and fifth, respectively. Two other parties gained seats, the new Dawn of Direct Democracy party and the Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party. ==Background== The previous election in May 2010, resulted in formation of the three party centre-right government ODSTOP09VV, representing 118 seats, and being led by Prime Minister Petr Nečas. On 22 April 2012, after a split of Public Affairs (VV) over corruption accusations against the party leadership itself (especially Vít Bárta), the ruling coalition of Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and TOP 09 dissolved its coalition with Public Affairs, and it appeared as if early elections would be held in June 2012. A breakaway fraction of Public Affairs led by Karolína Peake, was however shortly afterwards established as the party Liberal Democrats (LIDEM), who by effect entered and replaced VV in the three party government with ODS and TOP09. This slightly revised government constellation represented a total of 100 seats (ODS=51, TOP09=41, LIDEM=8), and as it also had additional backing from a group of independent MPs, it managed to win a subsequent vote of confidence on 27 April 2012, by 105 to 93 votes. On 17 June 2013, Prime Minister Petr Nečas resigned after a spying and corruption scandal. The leading opposition party, Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), demanded dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and a snap election, while the ODSTOP09LIDEM coalition argued they could still muster a majority for the governments continuation under Miroslava Němcová (ODS) as new prime minister, which they proposed to the Czech President. As per 25 June 2013, the previous government alliance however only represented 98 seats (ODS=50, TOP09=42, LIDEM=6), and was thus also dependent upon support from independent MPs. In order to proof existence of majority for the ODS led coalition, it submitted 101 MP signatures of support to the president, which included two extra independents being part of the LIDEM parliamentary group and the independent Michal Doktor (a former ODS party member). In this given situation, Czech President Miloš Zeman decided unprecedentedly not to adhere to any of the political requests, but instead to appoint a caretaker government which he calls "government of experts", while his critics describe it as "government of Zeman's friends", with Jiří Rusnok as new prime minister.〔(Czech PM resigns over his aide's illegal spying scandal - Aktuálně.cz ). Aktualne.centrum.cz. Retrieved on 2013-10-29.〕〔(UPDATE: ODS nominates Nemcova as new prime minister - Aktuálně.cz ). Aktualne.centrum.cz. Retrieved on 2013-10-29.〕〔(Zeman names caretaker PM but coalition wants to go on - Aktuálně.cz ). Aktualne.centrum.cz. Retrieved on 2013-10-29.〕 Former Prime Minister Jan Fischer was named as finance minister. Zeman emphasized that if the caretaker government, against his believe, could not muster majority support in the constitutionally required vote of confidence, taking place after 30 days in office, then he would award a second attempt for government formation to the ODS led coalition, provided it could still submit at least 101 MP signatures of renewed support. On 7 August 2013, the caretaker government of Jiří Rusnok lost the constitutionally required vote of confidence in parliament by 93 to 100 votes, with 7 opting not to vote. A simple majority of voting legislators was required to unseat the government, and this move was supported by all MPs from ODS, TOP09 and LIDEM; except from two ODS MPs and Karolína Peake from LIDEM, who broke the party ranks by opting not to vote. The two dissenting ODS MPs, who both lost their membership of the party few hours after the vote, reasoned their decision by stating they agreed with the analysis published by Prague's ODS councilor Tomáš Hrdlička, pointing out that if ODS wanted to win the municipal elections in 2014, it now needed some time in opposition to rebuild its moral integrity through some serious self-reflection, which included to "critically evaluate the errors of his governance, with particular emphasis on unmet or even broken election promises to voters (i.e. not to increase taxes)". Following the vote, Karolína Peake decided to resign as leader of LIDEM,〔(Mám už všeho po krk, říká rezignovaně Peake – ). Novinky.cz. Retrieved on 2013-10-29.〕 and TOP09 stated that due to a lack of sufficient absolute support for a potentially renewed ODSTOP09LIDEM government, reflected by that the three coalition parties only mustered 100 nay votes in the confidence vote (which came three short of absolute majority, when considering two of the nay votes had been submitted by NS-LEV 21 who wanted a ČSSD led government), they would now drop their support for renewal of such government, and instead support an early election. The ČSSD and Communist Party (KSČM) did likewise support an early election.〔(Rusnokova vláda nezískala důvěru – ). Novinky.cz. Retrieved on 2013-10-29.〕〔(Online: 100 proti 93, Rusnok důvěru nezískal - Aktuálně.cz ). Aktualne.centrum.cz. Retrieved on 2013-10-29.〕 Though the constitution of the Czech Republic allows the president two chances to offer someone an opportunity to form a new government, there is no time limit. As such the current caretaker government could in theory, despite of having lost the confidence vote, be allowed by the president to continue in its interim capacity till the election day, which might only arrive by the end of the legislative term in May 2014 - unless the parliament decides to hold a snap election by dissolving itself.〔 Never-the-less, the caretaker government decided voluntarily to resign immediately on 13 August 2013. This prompted the parliament to convene on 20 August with the agenda to decide, if the next step shall be, to dissolve the parliament with a call for new elections within 60 days, or in the alternative, to request the president shall start his second and final attempt to form a new government.〔 A vote was to take place at 14:00 on 20 August on dissolution of the parliament. The four parties (TOP 09, ČSSD, KSČM and VV) who had stated to support this motion, together represented more than the requisite minimum of 120 seats, corresponding to a 60% constitutional majority as per article 35(2) in the Czech constitution,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Constitution of the Czech Republic (16 December 1992) )〕 being needed to pass the resolution.〔(Czechs Set to Trigger Early Election to End Political Crisis (2) ). Businessweek. Retrieved on 2013-10-29.〕 The spokeswoman of the president stated that in case of parliament being dissolved, the president would most likely schedule this event to happen on 25-26 October 2013. On 20 August, the parliament indeed voted to approve the motion about dissolving itself, decided by 140 in favour of the motion and seven against; thus resulting in a new election within 60 days after presidential assent.〔〔 The president gave his approving assent for the dissolution of the parliament on 28 August, and scheduled the elections for 2526 October 2013.〔 The police investigation into the Petr Nečas cabinet spying scandal, is set to be concluded ahead of the election in October. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Czech legislative election, 2013」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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