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"With the people for the people."
The KSCM is one of the few largely unreconstructed Communist parties on the political scene in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In other countries the word "communist" has usually been replaced by terms such as "democratic left", but the KSCM continues to take pride in its Communist history. The party in its current form was not founded until March 1990, but it is effectively the heir to the KSC (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia), in power from 1948-1989. Several groups splintered from the party in the early 1990s and founded their own parties - such as Left Block and later the Party of Czechoslovak Communists, but while they have faded into obscurity the KSCM has sustained its firm position in parliament consistently winning over ten percent of the vote.
Vojtech Filip
18.51 %. 41 seats (the third largest party in the chamber after the Social Democrats and Civic Democrats). The result marked a significant increase compared with 1998, when the Communists won only 24 seats.
The KSCM is a socialist party, believing in strong state control of the economy. The party's political programme calls for "an appropriate degree of state ownership in key sectors of the economy (banking, transport, telecommunications, energy, the extractive industries etc.)". The party is opposed to Czech membership of NATO and the EU (in its current form). Most mainstream trade union leaders distance themselves from the party. Up to now all the other parties currently represented in parliament have ruled out any kind of coalition deal with the KSCM, unless the party undergoes major reforms. The long-serving leader of the party Miroslav Grebenicek, resigned in autumn 2005, and was replaced by Vojtech Filip, a younger politician with very similar political views. In the Chamber of Deputies the KSCM often votes with the ruling Social Democrats, and although the Social Democrats reject the idea of a coalition with the Communists, the current Prime Minister, Social Democrat Jiri Paroubek has made more overtures to the KSCM than any of his predecessors.
mainly older people who have found it hard to adapt to the new conditions; the party also enjoys support in industrial areas with high unemployment. The party has a large base of grass roots members, far outnumbering the other main political parties.
Website: www.kscm.cz
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