Christian Democrats win Czech Senate elections
Xinhua, October 16, 2016 Adjust font size:
In this year's Senate election, Czech Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) was the most successful party who won 9 out of the contested 27 wards in the 81-member upper house of the Czech parliament.
The remaining two members of the three-party government parties, Social Democrats (CSSD) and ANO, ended with failure in the Senate election. The CSSD only won in two wards and ANO in three. ANO had 14 candidates in the runoff vote, but only three of them succeeded in it.
The Mayors Movement and the opposition Civic Democratic Party (ODS) each won three wards, TOP 09 and the regional grouping Severocesi.cz won each two wards, the Communists (KSCM) won one wards.
The outcome of the vote was largely affected by record low turnout of 15.4 percent of eligible voters. Despite the meagre result, the CSSD will keep its position of the biggest group in the Senate with 25 senators. It is followed by that of the KDU-CSL and independents. They will have at least 15 senators. ANO will have eight members.
After the election, the current Czech government coalition will remain a constitutional majority in the Senate. Endit