Czech Republic

THE TWO DOMINANT left-wing parties in the Czech Republic, since its creation in 1993, have been the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and the Social Democratic Party. The first is the unreformed continuation of the totalitarian Communist Party that ruled Czechoslovakia (that was divided at the end of 1992 into the Czech and Slovak Republics) from 1948 to 1989. The Social Democrats won the elections of 1998 and 2002 and formed coalition governments under the premiership of Milos Zeman and Vladimir Spidla.

The Communist Party has won the support of about 20 percent of population in recent years, a rise from a steady 13 percent prior to 2000. This makes it the strongest unreformed Communist Party in any European Union country. Much of the support ...