The 2021 Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic elections : two movements vs. two coalitions
Abstract
The elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic 2021 were perceived as one of the key events of the year, which will decide on the further direction of the relatively polarized country. According to continuously published pre-election surveys, significant changes in the distribution of forces within the party system were expected.
Significant milestones were the consolidation of opposition forces, the formation of two electoral coalitions, and a change in electoral rules in the election year following the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic. The elections then brought about a shift in party competition - they opposed the ANO and SPD movements on the one hand and the SPOLU and PirSTAN election coalitions on the other.
Not only the ČSSD and the KSČM did not make it into the Chamber of Deputies, but no new independent entity got into it. It turned out that the grouping in the electoral coalitions gave the opposition subjects the necessary strength to defeat the current minority government ANO and the ČSSD, supported by the KSČM.
The SPOLU coalition won the election, but the PirSTAN coalition, with its election result, fell slightly short of expectations. Therefore, it is a question of another position on how the individual actors will respond in the long run to the modified parts of the electoral law and the results of coalition projects.
It will, of course, also be the permanence and resilience of the individual electoral coalitions, which will influence the future thinking of political parties and movements about this alternatively.