Introduction
From the mid-1990s until relatively recently, the Czech party system was highly stable. It featured two large parties: the center-right ODS and the center-left ČSSD, complemented by several smaller parties. This stability was disrupted by the 2010 election, and even more so by the early election in 2013. Primarily the latter could be described as an electoral earthquake (Haughton, Novotná and Deegan-Krause 2011; Hanley 2012; Havlík 2014; Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015). It produced a highly fragmented party system of seven parties, only two of which – ČSSD and ANO – can be designated as medium-sized, with the remaining five being small (see Table 1). The party system is obviously fragile, with large differences between parties in terms of institutionalization. Indeed one party, the Dawn of Direct Democracy, imploded while the manuscript for this chapter was being finalized in Spring 2015, and its future is unclear. However, some of the Dawn characteristics are so specific that it deserves a brief analysis.
This chapter first describes the origins, legal regulations, and funding of Czech parliamentary parties. It then focuses on party members (and their rights and obligations), as well as territorial structures, and the importance of these in the selection of candidates for elected offices. The final section will analyze central party structures and discuss the positions of party leaders. Although for reasons of space this chapter covers only selected issues, it does provide a cogent overview of the nature of the organization of Czech parties.
Origins: Three Generations of Parties
The character of Czech parties is greatly influenced by their origins, i.e. their history, traditions, the environment in which they were formed, and their organizational continuity or discontinuity. Three generations of parties can be identified. The first generation, deeply rooted in the age of mass parties, is represented by KSČM and KDU-ČSL, which have a long history of continuity. Structurally, KSČM is the successor of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), which was founded after World War I, and which operated as the party-state from 1948–1989. KDUČSL, founded at the same time as KSČ, survived the communist era as a satellite party. Therefore, both entities inherited substantial organizational capacity and widespread local structures from the pre-1989 era.