PRAGUE: The Czech Christian Democratic Party leadership accepted posts in a potential centre-left coalition yesterday, clearing the way for the prospective prime minister to present a cabinet to the president by the end of the year.
The smallest party in the emerging centre-left majority coalition was granted its demand to run the Agriculture Ministry along with two other cabinet positions, the Culture Ministry and a ministry without portfolio.
The division of ministerial posts between the three parties had been one of the last outstanding issues facing leaders of three parties trying to cobble together a government to present to the president.
“We have given preference to stability, so we would have a chance to start a good period for the country in the next four years,” the Christian Democrat’s vice chairman, Marian Jurecka, said on television.
The central European country is run now by a caretaker government lacking a mandate to push through major legislation while the economy recovers from a record-long recession.
The Social Democrats, winners of an October snap election after a bribery and spying scandal brought down a centre-right coalition in June, will get eight posts, including prime minister for their leader Bohuslav Sobotka.
REUTERS
