From 'Bubbler House' to Rubber-Stamping Body? The Influence of Populist Parties in the Government on the Functioning of the Czech Chamber of Deputies

The Czech Republic used to be a state with stable multi-party system where two strong traditional political parties (left-wing social democrats and right-wing civic democrats) were rotating in forming the Government. Negative effects of financial crisis and corruption scandals of the Government headed by Petr Nečas in 2012 however caused enormous shifts on the political map. Several new parties succeeded in general elections in 2013, the political movement ANO lead by billionaire Andrej Babiš became the second strongest party and junior partner of social democrats in the Government. The next general elections in 2017 finalized the transformation, ANO won them by landslide and formed the Government supported by social democrats and (indirectly) communists and right-wing extremists. All latter parties (partly with the exception of social democrats) fulfil the definition of populism (e.g. Hanley and Vachudova 2018). The Czech Government requires confidence from the Chamber of Deputies and executive-legislative relations had been in practice tilted in favour of the latter subject (Zbíral 2015), making the lower house a classic representative of strong parliaments (Wintr 2010). ANO and his leader Babiš from the beginning tried to turn this trend by promoting “managerial” approach (Havlík 2018), arguing that the conduct of business in the Chamber of Deputies must be rationalized, so that “things could be done” instead of empty discussions (Babiš often likens the parliament with the word in the title, e.g. Czech TV 2014). The planned contribution normatively and empirically describes and assesses how the new parties and primarily ANO have affected the functioning of the Chamber of Deputies. Attention would be focused on the legislative process, but also to control mechanisms vis a vis the Government. The Czech case is interesting because it allows to compare election periods with developing strength of new subjects (none, minoritarian, majoritarian). Both qualitative and quantitative data are to be utilized. The preliminary results indicate that both formal and informal traditional mechanisms empowering the Chamber and opposition remain quire resilient and while certain shifts have occurred, the Government is still only partially able to “have its way”.