Aktuality

Official View of the Democratic Club

10. 5. 2010

(46) Concerning elections for the town council of the capital of Prague and the law on elections of representatives in municipalities and districts

Elections for Prague representatives are drawing near. The representatives are being elected according to the law about elections for municipal representatives. The present city council has 70 members elected in one election region. At this time we come to learn about a bill, which regarding its present distribution of political power has a great chance to be approved of, for Prague to be divided in more election regions, very likely seven. That means that in each election region only ten representatives would be voted for. That might lead to the fact that parties which had obtained less than 10 % votes wouldn`t manage to get among city representatives of Prague, which again might result in a decrease of opinion plurality among Prague representatives.

The present election laws require attaining a 5 % limit out of all delivered votes in order that the candidates for parties and movements may be elected as representatives of the respective municipality. Introducing election districts in Prague the limit would be artificially made higher, elimitating smaller political parties from taking part in making decisions in the capital`s politics.

That`s why the Democratic Club suggests to the PCR members to modify the law so that the town or community, as well as the districts in local elections, would always form only one election region.They also suggest to abolish the five-percent limit in elections to municipal or regional town councils. An altrenative to preventing modification of election districts appearing as favourable for present majorities might be a new introduction of a law, allowing to modify the number of constituencies, yet under the condition that this would be practicable no sooner than the next followin g elections.

There is no reason to divide the regions, Prague, cities and communities into election districts, as inhabitants in cities and communities will usually turn either to a concrete person, mayor or representative, or they will select among the representatives which they had elected in these elections.

For good work of regions, towns and communities it is not necessarry that local councils should form a sound majority. On the contrary, larger opinion diversity in regional and town councils would contribute to manage regional problems, as the respective representatives would better reflect the needs of their constituents. Simultaneously, it would give rise to an opportunity of gaining political experience within a wider range of candidates. Moreover, experience shows that when deciding on local level, consensus is reached more easily

Prague, March l7 th 20l0 .