Czech election contenders in tight race

The question of joining the European Union loomed large as the Czech Republic voted yesterday. Its general election is a neck-and-neck race between Eurosceptics, led by a man known as the last Thatcherite in Europe, and Europhiles.

The election will almost certainly choose the government that leads the country into the EU, which hopes to expand eastward in 2004. It will also affect who becomes President when Vaclav Havel retires in January, as the new President will be chosen by parliament.

Yet it has been a dull campaign, with voters lured to the hustings through offers of free beer and leaflets handed out by topless young women, rather than by the speeches.

Just ahead in polls, with 30 per cent, are the Social Democrats, led by Vladimir Spidla. Often described as boring, Mr Spidla is pro-European and is offering a huge social welfare programme to rival anything in Scandinavia.

Just behind him is a man who could not be described as dull. Vaclav Klaus, leader of the right-wing Civic Democrats and second in the polls with 28 per cent, is pictured in his campaign literature standing shoulder to shoulder with Baroness Thatcher. As Prime Minister in the Nineties, Mr Klaus privatised much of the economy. But there was always a whiff of corruption – many privatised companies were ruthlessly asset-stripped by new owners close to Mr Klaus.

Fiercely Eurosceptic, Mr Klaus speaks for a growing number of Czechs who are wary of joining the EU. Support for joining has fallen to 43 per cent of late. Yet he also says the country cannot afford to stay out. Mr Klaus, privately disliked by many leading figures in the EU, is expected to be a tough negotiator over entry. What no one is sure of is whether it is just rhetoric – or if he would be prepared to oppose joining if his demands were not met.

Lurking behind this is an ugly, simmering row with Germany and Austria over the expulsion of Czechoslovakia's ethnic Germans at the end of the Second World War, which has fired up nationalist sentiments in the Czech Republic and its neighbours. Leaping on the bandwagon, Mr Klaus is demanding a guarantee from the EU that the Benes decrees, under which the Sudeten Germans were forced out, will never be questioned as a condition for agreeing to join.

The election has in many ways become a vote for or against Mr Klaus, in part because Mr Spidla broke the cosy power-sharing conventions of Czech politics and said he would never go into coalition with him. That means the balance of power will probably rest with two smaller parties who are running together and are in third place with 16 per cent.

Mr Spidla has emerged as a tough contender, although he was quiet as a minister under the outgoing Prime Minister, Milos Zeman. Mr Spidla twice trounced Mr Klaus in televised debates, to much astonishment.

One thing will make Czech politics less colourful: the retirement of Mr Zeman. He insulted politicians, mocked one of his own ministers and called Sudeten Germans "Hitler's fifth column". But rumours say he may run for President.