KDU-ČSL


KDU-ČSL, often shortened to lidovci is a Christian-democratic political party in the Czech Republic. The party has taken part in almost every Czech Government since 1990 and have participated in both left-wing and right-wing coalition governments. 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.

History

Towards the end of the 19th century Roman Catholics in Bohemia and Moravia joined political movements inside Cisleithanian Austria-Hungary. The Christian-Social Party was set up in September 1894 in Litomyšl, and the Catholic National Party in Moravia was set up in September 1896 in Přerov.
Československá strana lidová was created in January 1919 in Prague, reuniting other Catholic parties, and Jan Šrámek was selected as its chairman. In 1921, ČSL entered the government of Czechoslovakia, and was subsequently part of governing coalitions regardless of political changes.
After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Šrámek served as head of Czechoslovak government in exile. After 1945, ČSL was part of the national unity government, forming its most right-wing section. When the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took over all power in February 1948, many ČSL officials were imprisoned. The party lost any real influence and was kept as a de facto puppet of Moscow-aligned communists. In turn, it was allowed to keep a token presence of ČSL in government until 1989.
After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 ČSL attempted to shed its compromised figures and policies of the past: this included a change of name in 1992 after the merger with the Christian and Democratic Union. KDU-ČSL was part of the governments of Václav Klaus's Civic Democratic Party until its ministers left in autumn 1997 which triggered the government's fall; KDU-ČSL was also represented in the caretaker government of Josef Tošovský before the premature elections in 1998.
In June 2002 KDU–ČSL went into the elections on a joint ballot with the Freedom Union–Democratic Union as the "Two-Coalition", which was the last remnant of an unsuccessful attempt to unite them with three smaller parties into the "Four-Coalition" which would provide an alternative to the practices of the "opposition agreement" of ODS and Czech Social Democratic Party. However it turned out that the KDU–ČSL's traditional voters identified much more strongly with their original party than the whole, unlike US–DEU's liberal city ones, and using preferential votes on evenly split ballots caused that KDU–ČSL gained 22 MPs to US–DEU's 9 even though both parties were of roughly equal strength. They entered the government again by forming a coalition with the winning Czech Social Democratic Party.
In 2003 Miroslav Kalousek was elected chairman; unlike his predecessor Cyril Svoboda he represents the right wing of KDU–ČSL favouring cooperation with ODS, which was a source of tension within the coalition. He refused to enter the government both after his election and the government's reconstruction after PM Vladimír Špidla's resignation, and finally on 19 February 2005 asked for the resignation of PM Stanislav Gross after his finance scandal broke out. Gross retaliated by threatening to remove KDU–ČSL from his cabinet; a government crisis ensued.
After the 2006 legislative elections and lengthy negotiations caused by stalemated result, the KDU–ČSL formed a government together with the ODS and the Green Party.
Cyril Svoboda became the party chairman on 30 May 2009. In reaction to his election, his predecessor Miroslav Kalousek led a split from the party to form TOP 09, as he considered Svoboda to be too far on the left wing of the party. In the 2010 Chamber of Deputies election, the party's vote dropped to 4.39%, and they lost every one of their seats to other parties. Svoboda resigned as a consequence of the results. In November Pavel Bělobrádek was elected on his stead. The Party returned to the Parliament after 2013 election, becoming the so far only party in the history of Czech republic to achieve a return after defeat in elections. On 12 April 2017, KDU-ČSL signed an agreement with STAN to participate in 2017 legislative election as a coalition. Coalition needed to get more 10% of votes get over threshold. The coalition disintegrated before the election, thus the party went into the elections standalone, receiving 5.8% of votes.
In March 2019 the party was officially renamed to KDU-ČSL, its common abbreviation and Marek Výborný became a new party leader. After the death of his wife announced Marek Výborný in November 2019 his resignation for personal reasons.
Tomáš Zdechovský, Jan Bartošek and Marian Jurečka decided then to run for party leader.

Current situation

KDU–ČSL has relatively low but stable support of voters ; it is strongest in the traditionally Catholic rural areas in Moravia. Historically, it is a mass party with about 50,000 members ; most of them are of old age, however, and recruitment of new members can't keep the membership numbers from declining.
The influence of the party is rather bigger than that, as it tries – so far rather successfully – to take advantage of the fragmented Czech political situation and make itself a necessary part of any coalition, whether the winning big party be left- or right-wing.
KDU–ČSL is a member of the European People's Party.

Internal Structure

Membership

KDU-ČSL had 27,662 Members in 2015 which is the second largest member base of any party in the Czech Republic. The number is decreasing 1990s when the party had 100,000 Members, It is caused by high average age of members.
199119921999200820122013201420152016
95,43588,00060,00040,00033,00029,97628,54127,66226,420

Party Strongholds

KDU-ČSL is known to have very strong electoral core which is concentrated primarily in South Moravia. The party has very stable electoral support thanks to it and managed to gain seats in Chamber of Deputies everytime since 1990 with exception of 2010

Partners

Notable partners and suborganisations of the KDU-ČSL are:
, leader of the party from 2010 to 2019
Party patron is Saint Wenceslaus, on every congress is played Saint Wenceslas Chorale. Members addressing themselves as brothers and sisters.
Party had many symbols through history, current logo depicts symbol of Christian cross on linden leaf.

Logos

Name of the party over time

Czechoslovakia wide elections

Legislative elections

Devolved assembly elections

Czech assembly elections

Slovak assembly elections

Czech Republic wide elections

Legislative elections

Senate

* Places are by number of votes gained.

** The whole Senate was elected. Only one third of Senate was elected in all subsequent elections.

***Participated as Part of Four-Coalition

Presidential

European Parliament

Local elections

YearVoteVote %Seats
19908,845,56211,58,083
19949,260,542 7.23 7,616
19987,206,34611.187,119
20027,728,4029.586,013
20066,263,9805.765,049
20104,938,9605.473,738
20144,865,9564.913,792

Regional elections

Czech

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