Czech politics in the second half of 1990s and in 2010s was characterised by high political and government instability. An interesting phenomenon which occurred at those times was the formation of special “semipolitical” cabinets. The specific features of their origin were the unwillingness of most political elites to assume government responsibility in view of the imminent early elections, and strong involvement of the president whose role in the conditions of Czech parliamentary democracy is otherwise limited. In the two “semipolitical” cases so far, the cabinets of Josef Tošovský (1998) and Jan Fischer (2009 – 2010), the government was headed by a high civil servant without any political experience, but the cabinets also included some party ministers. This paper will focus on both cases. The main aim is to analyze the circumstances of the cabinets’ origin, the behaviour of individual political participants, their ideas of the government character, and the way the cabinets had won confidence of the parliament. The comparison will demonstrate persisting tendencies of relevant Czech political parties to use politically external actors and tools to bridge “trouble” periods of inter-party relations in the process of Czech coalition governance.
