Prague, Feb 4 (CTK) – The support for Communist (KSCM) Zdenek Ondracek’s election as head of the Czech lower house commission supervising the General Inspection of Security Forces (GIBS) should not be part of the government-forming talks, Jan Hamacek (Social Democrats, CSSD) and Radek Vondracek (ANO) said today.
“I don’t think that this should be a part of the [planned] government-forming negotiations,” Vondracek, Chamber of Deputies chairman from the election-winning ANO movement, said in a debate on Czech Television.
His partner in the debate, Hamacek, who is the Chamber’s deputy chairman and will seek CSSD chairmanship at the party’s upcoming congress, said he hopes that any negotiations about a new government [including possible talks between ANO and the CSSD, if approved by the CSSD congress] would mainly focus on the programme, not on a post in a lower house commission.
Ondracek, a former communist police officer, failed to be elected as head of the commission for the supervision of GIBS by the Chamber of Deputies in the votes in December and January.
He was the only candidate for the post.
Many lawmakers said they mind Ondracek’s past as a member of the police’s raid unit intervening against anti-communist demonstrations.
The KSCM, to which the post of the commission head went based on parties’ previous agreement, insists on Ondracek’s nomination and it is going to propose him for the post again. The next vote may be taken at the Chamber of Deputies’ session in late February.
Ondracek is the only KSCM deputy in the commission.
Vondracek said today that the post of a parliamentary commission head is merely organisational, but still he has problem supporting Ondracek’s candidacy.
“This is not a fortunate solution,” he said, adding that symbols play a role in politics.
Hamacek said the CSSD did not and would not vote for Ondracek.
He said he can imagine the CSSD fielding its own candidate, for example former interior minister and current CSSD acting head Milan Chovanec, who is a member of the commission supervising GIBS.
The Pirates previously said they will nominate Mikulas Ferjencik for the post. If so, the Pirate party would have to withdraw from the commission its own chairman Ivan Bartos, who is the party’s only representative in