Czech presidential election, 1998

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Czech presidential election, 1998
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←  1993 20 January 1998 2003  →

  Vaclav Havel cropped.jpg
Nominee Václav Havel
Party Independent
Electoral vote146
(final round)
Percentage 52.3%
President before election

Václav Havel
Independent

Elected President

Václav Havel
Independent

The 1998 Czech presidential election took place on 20 January 1998 to elect a new President of the Czech Republic. The Parliament of the Czech Republic elected the president on the second round. Václav Havel was reelected President. The election is linked with controversial arrest of an opposition candidate Miroslav Sládek which was criticised by Havel's opponents. [1] [2] [3]

Miroslav Sládek Czechoslovak Czech president candidate (1993), Czech president candidate (1998), member of Czech Parliament (1996–1998), member of Czechoslovak parliament, Czechoslovak politician and mayor

Miroslav Sládek is a Czech politician, and the founder and chairman of the right-wing populist Coalition for Republic – Republican Party of Czechoslovakia (SPR-RSČ). Founded in 1990, the party was disbanded in 2001, and re-established in 2016.

Contents

Election procedure

President of the Czech Republic was elected indirectly by a joint session of the Czech Parliament. Each ballot can have at most three rounds. In the first round, a victorious candidate requires an absolute majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Given a 200-seat Chamber and an 81-seat Senate, a successful first-round candidate requires 101 deputies and 41 senators.

If no single candidate gets a majority of both the Chamber and the Senate, a second round is then called for. At this stage, a candidate requires an absolute majority of merely those actually present at the time of voting in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The actual number of votes required in the second round might be the same as in the first round, but it can be a little less, due to the absence of a few parliamentarians. Nevertheless, in this second round, a single candidate would need to win a majority in both the Chamber and the Senate.

Should no single candidate achieve a majority of both houses then present, a third round is necessitated. In this final round, which can happen within 14 days of the first round, an absolute majority of deputies and senators present suffices. At this stage, the individual houses of parliament are not considered separately. Assuming that all members of parliament are present, all that is required to win is 141 votes, regardless of the house of origin. If no candidate wins in the third round, another ballot has to be considered in a subsequent joint session of parliament. The process continues under the same rules until a candidate prevails.

Parties in parliament

PartyChamber of DeputiesSenate Endorsed candidate
Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD)
61 / 200
25 / 81
 Václav Havel
Civic Democratic Party (ODS)
36 / 200
31 / 81
 Václav Havel
Freedom Union (US)
33 / 200
1 / 81
 Václav Havel
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM)
22 / 200
2 / 81
 Stanislav Fischer
Christian and Democratic Union - Czechoslovak People's Party (KDU-ČSL)
18 / 200
13 / 81
 Václav Havel
Coalition for Republic – Republican Party of Czechoslovakia (SPR-RSČ)
18 / 200
0 / 200
 Miroslav Sládek
Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA)
13 / 200
7 / 81
 Václav Havel
Democratic Union (DEU)
0 / 200
1 / 81
 Václav Havel
Independents
0 / 200
1 / 81

Candidates

Václav Havel playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Václav Havel was a Czech statesman, writer and former dissident, who served as the last President of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then as the first President of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs.

The Freedom Union–Democratic Union was a small, pro-european liberal party in the Czech Republic from 1998 to 2011.

Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak Peoples Party Czech political party

The Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party (Czech: Křesťanská a demokratická unie – Československá strana lidová, KDU–ČSL, often shortened to lidovci is a Christian-democratic political party in the Czech Republic. The party took part in almost every Czech Government since 1990. In the June 2006 election, the party won 7.2% of the vote and 13 out of 200 seats; but in the 2010 election, this dropped to 4.4% and they lost all their seats. The party regained its parliamentary standing in the 2013 legislative election, winning 14 seats in the new parliament, thereby becoming the first party ever to return to the Chamber of Deputies after dropping out.

Results

Václav Havel received 130 votes in the first round and was the only candidate who qualified for the second round, as he gained the most votes in both chambers of parliament. There he receive 146 votes of 279 and won by seven votes but by only one vote in Chamber of Deputies which draw a controversy to the election as Miroslav Sládek couldn't vote in the election due to his arrest. It should be noted that if Sládek participated in the vote, Havel would probably be elected in the third round. Sládek's Republican Party called Havel's victory illegal and refused to acknowledge it. The First Lady Dagmar Havlová was whistling during a speech of a Republican MP Jan Vik. [5] [6]

CandidateFirst roundSecond round
DeputiesSenatorsTotal%DeputiesSenatorsTotal%
Václav Havel 913913070.659947146100
Stanislav Fischer 2653116.85
Miroslav Sládek 2212312.50
Total139451841009947146100

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References

  1. ↑ "Občan Havel: Kouteckého nasládlá propaganda, kterou měla naštěstí rozum odmítnout i Česká televize". blisty.cz. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  2. ↑ "Dvoje prezidentské volby". www.bohumildolezal.cz. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  3. ↑ "Havel byl zvolen prezidentem nezákonně, tvrdí dělníci | EuroZprávy.cz - Aktuální události z domova i ze světa". m.domaci.eurozpravy.cz. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Lutišan, Vojtěch. [VOLBA PREZIDENTA REPUBLIKY V ČESKÉ REPUBLICE VOLBA PREZIDENTA REPUBLIKY V ČESKÉ REPUBLICE] Check |url= value (help). Brno: Masaryk University. pp. 24–25. Retrieved 2 April 2017.
  5. ↑ "Deset let poté: Dagmar Havlová pískala v Parlamentu". TN.cz. 19 January 2008. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  6. ↑ "1998 - Volba prezidenta 2008 (Český rozhlas)". www.rozhlas.cz. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
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