How Strong Is the President in Government Formation? A New Classification and the Czech Case

Introduction

Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe often show a marked appetite for influencing politics, and this frequently results in clashes with other political actors, notably parties. ¹ One of the key areas in which presidents manifest their appetite is in the government formation process (GFP). Government formation, understood as the appointment of a prime minister and cabinet members, sets the fundamental framework of governance for the future. Also, presidential power in the GFP is undoubtedly a very important competence for presidents in European countries, although it is mostly more or less limited by constitutions and other factors. This can be well illustrated by the fact that this power has been used as a proxy to assess the degree of presidential activism. ²

The influence of presidents over the outcome of the GFP was neglected in political science research for a long time, as it was assumed that the process was entirely controlled by parliamentary parties. ³ In 2010, Petra Schleiter claimed that “the study of cabinet formation, in particular in parliamentary democracies, but to a significant extent also in presidential democracies, has become virtually synonymous with coalition studies.” ⁴ Since then lots of research has been done. Some studies have analyzed the effects of various factors on duration and result of the GFP with a specific attention paid to the role of president. ⁵ There are also single case studies concerned with a particular GFP. ⁶ Hence, nowadays it would be unwarranted to argue that this topic is ignored by scholarly literature.

This article takes a different approach to the GFP and its aim is threefold. First, we present an original classification of the roles of presidents in GFP reflecting real constitutional practice, moving beyond comparing formal constitutional rules. This is an attempt to construct a general qualitative framework to assess and distinguish various degrees of presidential influence over the outcome of the GFP. It can be applied basically to all European parliamentary and semipresidential regimes in which the head of state, prime minister (PM), and his or her cabinet are accountable to the parliament. ⁷ Second, applying the classification, we bring systematic comparative analysis of the roles Czech presidents have played in all GFPs since the establishment of an independent Czechia in 1993. In particular, we show that the Czech presidents have been quite powerful in the GFP, both in terms of formal constitutional rules and in actual political practice, which holds true even for the period that preceded the introduction of the popular presidential elections in 2012. Third, we demonstrate that the degree of influence presidents exerted over all cases of GFP in Czechia have varied significantly despite the fact that formal constitutional rules have remained constant. The degree of influence has mostly been contingent on non-constitutional factors. The most important are the state of the party system and the timing of parliamentary and presidential elections.

The article is structured as follows. First, it presents the classification of the roles a president may play in the GFP. Second, the article studies the formal rules regulating the GFP in Czechia. Third, the core of the article is a chronological analysis of the performance of all three Czech presidents during the GFP. All cases are assigned to one of five categories of president roles in the GFP in line with the suggested classification, and a summary comparison follows.

Towards the Classification of Presidents’ Role in GFP

When analyzing the formation of government cabinets, ⁸ it is necessary to examine formal-constitutional rules regulating the GFP, as well as the actual course of the GFP in terms of real constitutional politics. Analysis of GFP in European states in formal terms, for example, studying constitutional texts, shows that the parliament and the president are the key actors. ⁹

However, in constitutional practice, the GFP results from inter-party bargaining, as the parties dominate the parliaments. Also, in Western and East-Central Europe, the government is almost exclusively accountable to the parliament, which has the right to recall the government through a motion of no-confidence. ¹⁰ Hence, governments are primarily (albeit not always) formed with regard to the preferences of the parliamentary majority. To be sure, presidents are also often involved in the bargaining and their role (albeit in most cases rather weaker than that of the parliamentary parties) should not be neglected.

If we come out of the general assumption that the government is the result of negotiation between parliamentary parties (and also among them) and the president, ¹¹ it is logical to distinguish between parliamentary and presidential cabinets. The parliamentary cabinet largely results from an agreement between parliamentary parties. The president’s role in the GFP is rather formal: he or she formally confirms the cabinet determined by the parliamentary parties. On the other hand, the presidential cabinet primarily reflects the will of the president, whereas the parliamentary parties’ role in the GFP is only secondary. Some authors point out that the presidential cabinets or cabinets significantly affected by presidential preferences tend to have a higher share of non-partisan ministers or they may even be technocratic cabinets, which are generally perceived as cabinets with a non-partisan PM. ¹² Here, the GFP is not solely in the hands of parliamentary parties, and the president may be tempted to push for non-partisan ministers, as they are more likely to be loyal to him instead of to party-controlled parliaments.

Moreover, the presidential cabinet may not always reflect the distribution of political forces in the parliament, ¹³ although in European countries, where the government is accountable to the parliament, it is generally assumed that heads of state involved in the GFP take into account the opinion of the parliamentary parties on the composition of the government so that the government can increase their chances of either winning a vote of confidence or surviving a potential no-confidence vote. In Europe “pure” presidential cabinets are very rare outside France. These have occasionally appeared (e.g., in Portugal) but usually as technocratic cabinets appointed for a limited period of time. ¹⁴

In political practice, we can find a number of examples that are somewhere in between the two above-mentioned cases: these cabinets are formed as a compromise between the parties and the president, with each holding a varying degree of influence. Hence, in general, three basic types of cabinets can be distinguished according to their origin: (1) parliamentary cabinets, (2) cabinets that result from agreement between the president and the parliamentary parties, and (3) presidential cabinets.

The actual practice of the GFP in European countries is very diverse. For this reason, we define more subtle categories, which are presented below from the perspective of the president. The categories are not based only on formal constitutional competences, but mainly reflect the real influence of the president in the GFP. Besides formal constitutional competencies, the role of the president depends on a number of factors, such as the president’s relationship with the parliamentary majority, the president’s political orientation, the degree of fragmentation of the party system, the organizational capacity of parties, historical precedents, the public’s expectations of the president, his popularity and informal authority, the mode of election of the president, and the timing of the presidential election, etc. ¹⁵

Our classification categories are compiled inductively, that is, on the basis of a generalization of knowledge about the GFP in particular European countries: ¹⁶ (1) observer, (2) notary, (3) regulator, (4) co-designer, and (5) creator. The whole process can be seen as a trade-off: the greater the influence a president has over the GFP, the less influence the parliamentary parties exert and vice versa. This classification is further based on the assumption that the activity level of the parliamentary parties may differ significantly from that of the president. While weaker heads of state (observer or notary) are rather passive and let the parliamentary parties take the initiative, stronger presidents (co-designer and creator) tend to be more active and play a more important role in the GFP. The extent of the actors’ activity is also linked to the relevance of their political preferences as to the government and its shape. While weaker heads of state do not display their preferences (as they are irrelevant anyway), stronger presidents tend to reveal their preferences in an effort to defend the steps they take in the course of the GFP. As it will be clear from the paragraphs below, we expect that non-constitutional factors are crucial (e.g., party system factors) for the categories; nevertheless, there are constitutional limits on how involved the president can be in the GFP. In fact, in European countries presidents are significantly constrained not only by partisan concerns (respect to the will of parliamentary majority) but also by constitutional rules regulating the GFP. For example, in an overwhelming majority of European countries, a new cabinet (or PM) must be elected/receive confidence by parliamentary majority, whereas “negative” rules regulating the GFP are typical for constitutional monarchies. ¹⁷ In general, in European countries where cabinets are formally accountable to parliament, the former tends to be formed with the active participation and consent of the latter. On the other hand, the role of the president in the GFP tends to be weaker given the constitutional constraints. In addition, presidents are not usually leaders of parliamentary parties and therefore we expect most of the presidents to be a “notary” or a “regulator,” whereas it is not very likely that there will be a “co-designer,” and even more unlikely that the president will be a “creator,” as it might indicate stretching or even violating the constitution. Instead, we expect that these roles are typical in the time of crisis in which parties—burdened by various problems (e.g., political scandals, economic crises)—may not be able to form a partisan cabinet. This creates an opportunity for the president to appoint a technocratic caretaker cabinet. ¹⁸

Also, given the fact that our classification reflects mainly non-constitutional factors (e.g., party system), which are highly changeable and flexible in contrast to the constitutional texts, it may well be that each president can fall into a different category at different points in his tenure.

Let us explore the categories in more detail (summarization in Table 1). The observer, unlike any of the following patterns, has neither a formal nor informal role in the GFP. In this case, the GFP is exclusively in the hands of the parliament. In European republican countries we cannot find any president that would fit the observer pattern. Nevertheless, the observer type can surely be identified in some European monarchies: Sweden since 1975 and the Netherlands since 2012.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1

Heads of State in the Government Formation Process (GFP)

	Control over the GFP	Political Preferences	Level of Activity	Empirical Examples
Observer	No	Irrelevant	No	Sweden, the Netherlands
Notary	Limited	Irrelevant	Low	Germany, Austria, the UK, Norway
Regulator	Medium	Relevant	Medium	Austria (1953 and 1959), Slovenia (1997)
Co-designer	Main	Relevant	High	Romania (1999), Serbia (2008)
Creator	Exclusive	Relevant	Very high	France, the Fifth Republic (apart from the periods of cohabitation), Portugal (1978–1979)

The notary plays a constitutional role in the GFP, but his overall role is limited to formalizing the decisions of the parliament on the future government. This very weak and purely formal role can be the result of different circumstances. A notary role is typically played by a president in parliamentary (or semi-presidential) republics where the president has some constitutional competence in the GFP, but the key is that due to the overall set-up of the political system and constitutional conventions, the parliamentary parties play the dominant role in the process.

The notary is present also in situations where the president might have an ambition to play a stronger role in the GFP but lacks the power to push through his ideas and is unable to offer a viable alternative to that of the parliamentary majority. The president ultimately fully respects the alternative pushed by the parliamentary majority. ¹⁹ The notary has no factual power to impose his own preferences (which are irrelevant anyway) on the future government. His overall role in the process is largely passive. This pattern clearly dominates in a number of European countries (e.g., Germany, as well as in monarchies such as the United Kingdom and Norway).

The regulator plays a relatively important role in the GFP. He is involved (directly or through mediators) in parties’ bargaining over a new cabinet. The regulator reveals his political preferences, which are thus relevant to the outcome of the GFP. He does not necessarily come up with his own government alternative. However, he may set some conditions for the new cabinet, for example, preference for a majority cabinet; preference for a cabinet that includes/excludes a certain party or some candidates for prime ministers, ministers, etc. The role of the regulator is no longer passive, but rather reactive. He expects that parties will propose their alternatives for the future cabinet within the limits set by him and he reveals his preferences for a certain alternative. Good examples of this situation come from Austria in the 1950s. The Austrian presidents typically play the role of a notary, although their formal (constitutional) position is relatively strong. However, the presidents can intervene when they are not satisfied with the designed coalition. During government negotiations in 1953, and again in 1959, the Christian Democrats, one of two major parties seeking to create a “grand coalition,” suggested incorporating the small, nationalistic, League of Independents (later the Freedom Party) to the cabinet. The motivation for this step was to strengthen the non-socialist forces in the cabinet and to prepare the ground for a government that would exclude the second major party—the Socialists. In both cases, Presidents Theodor Körner and Adolf Schärf, rejected the Christian Democratic proposal and the long-lasting “grand coalition” continued. ²⁰

A little different example is offered by Slovenia in 1997. The formal and actual role of local presidents in the GFP is usually highly limited. However, in this case, presidential control over the GFP increased significantly. The Liberal Democratic Party led by Janez Drnovšek won in the parliamentary elections, but controlled (with its allies) only forty-five of ninety MPs. The opposing alliance of parties had the same number of seats and expected to form a new cabinet. President Milan Kučan nominated Drnovšek as the prime minister. Drnovšek originally failed to get the parliamentary majority’s support, but Kučan allowed him yet another chance. The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party was eventually successful because of a single deputy defection from the opposition alliance. ²¹

The co-designer is a strong player in the GFP, and his overall influence over the outcome of this process is greater than that of the parliamentary parties. Unlike the regulator who does not usually propose governmental alternatives on his own, nor does he assert them, the co-designer promotes his own idea and composition of the future cabinet, and his opinion largely, but not completely, determines the outcome of the GFP. The co-designer is typically a powerful president, who however lacks majority support in parliament and who cannot afford to push his idea completely independently and against the will of the parliament. Instead, he needs cooperative parliamentary parties to set up the new cabinet. The co-designer may also be found in situations in which a president has fewer constitutional powers in the GFP, but the parliamentary parties are unable to generate a cabinet on their own and thus encourage the president to step significantly into the process, so that an originally weak president becomes a co-designer. It follows from our observations that the pattern of co-designer is rather infrequent. Still, we can identify two examples. In 1999, Romanian President Emil Constantinescu appointed Mugur Isarescu’s technocratic cabinet. Isarescu was selected by the president as a compromise candidate to unblock a constitutional deadlock. ²² In 2008, Mirko Cvetkovič became the Serbian prime minister, as he was pushed through by President Boris Tadič. Tadič, the leader of the winning formation, had to find a difficult compromise with politically antagonistic socialists for the creation of a government coalition. ²³

The creator clearly dominates the GFP. He forms the cabinet on his own, in line with his ideas and political preferences. Parliament’s role is either limited to a minimum (e.g., formalizing the president’s choice in a vote of confidence) or the parliament is out of the game altogether (in countries were the new cabinet is not obliged to ask for confidence). The designer creates so-called “presidential cabinets,” that is, cabinets that are created primarily at the will of the president, while the parliament is sidelined. ²⁴ The creator is typically the president of presidential regimes, but can also occur in countries where the president is usually responsible for the executive and has a wide range of executive powers. He is at the same time the leader of the parliamentary majority, and it is generally expected that the president will actually determine the government.

The French presidents during the Fifth Republic are a classic example. Of course, this is not the case in the periods of cohabitation, when the president faces a parliamentary majority from a different political camp. However, a creator might be also a president who is formally strong enough to appoint his own presidential (usually technocratic) cabinet, even though he lacks the support of the parliamentary majority, and the continuation of such a government in power and pursuit of its program may be extremely problematic. ²⁵ Good examples of this practice might be the three short-lived technocratic cabinets appointed by Portuguese President António Eanes in 1978 and 1979. “His” first cabinet, led by Alfredo Nobre da Costa, was a reaction to the break-up of a previous coalition cabinet. However, his cabinet resigned very early, as the parliament rejected its program manifesto. His successor, Carlos Mota Pinto, led another presidential cabinet that also failed to get parliamentary support for its policies and resigned to pre-empt a vote of no confidence. Next, Maria de Lurdes Pintasilgo’s cabinet was appointed to serve merely about two months until the new elections. ²⁶

The Constitution’s Concise Definition of Government Formation

Article 68 of the constitution is crucial for the GFP in Czechia. It applies not just after elections but also throughout the electoral term if the existing government comes to an end for whatever reason. The constitution says that “the President of the Republic shall appoint the Prime Minister and, on the basis of the Prime Minister’s proposal, the other members of the government and entrust them with the management of the ministries or other offices.” Thus, the Czech constitution gives the president comparatively large discretion in the GFP. He is not obliged to appoint the leader of the largest parliamentary party, nor does the constitution specify any time period within which the president has to appoint a new prime minister.

The presidential power to appoint a prime minister is constrained by two factors. First, there has been a constitutional convention which assumes that the president shall consult his steps in the GFP with parliamentary parties and that in most cases the prime minister shall be the leader of the largest parliamentary party. ²⁷ Second, the newly appointed cabinet is obliged to win the motion of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies (art. 68). These constraints force the president to appoint a cabinet that is in line with the parliamentary majority and that is highly likely to succeed in this obligatory vote.

If the government fails to win the Chamber’s confidence (which requires an absolute majority of votes from the deputies present), the initiative passes back to the president and the constitution prescribes that the whole procedure is repeated. If this second appointed government should fail in the Chamber, the right to choose the prime minister is passed on to the Chamber’s speaker. Should the speaker also fail, the president has to dissolve the Chamber. However, it needs to be noted that this so-called third attempt—when the speaker of the Chamber chooses the prime minister—has thus far never happened, and the president has always kept his powers in the GFP.

It is, however, essential to fully understand the considerable presidential power in the GFP: immediately after the president appoints the new government, the latter can assume and exert its powers. The newly appointed government does not have to wait until the Chamber of Deputies expresses its confidence in the cabinet. Moreover, even if the cabinet does not receive confidence, the president authorizes this cabinet to execute its office “temporarily until a new Government is appointed” (art. 62). In other words, the president has enough constitutional powers to appoint his own “presidential” cabinet contrary to the will of the parliamentary majority, which may reject confidence in the cabinet; but the president—given no time framework to appoint a new cabinet—may procrastinate in appointing the new cabinet, while his cabinet can work almost undisturbed. In fact, there are no time limits in the whole constitutional procedure of appointing the government, with the exception of the appointed cabinet which is required to ask for confidence in the parliament within 30 days after its appointment. It is only generally expected that “the president and the prime minister have a duty to take the relevant steps without undue delay.” ²⁸ In contrast to the appointment of a prime minister, where presidents enjoy a considerable discretion, their role in appointing government members is much more restrained, because here the presidents may appoint them only upon the Prime Minister’s proposal (art. 68). To sum up: the Czech constitution gives the president huge opportunities in the GFP.

Václav Havel: A Moral Leader

A writer and playwright by profession, a principal figure of dissent during the communist era and an informal leader of the broad Civic Forum in the Velvet Revolution of 1989—these were the experiences informing Václav Havel’s personality before he came to office as the country’s president. He was an extraordinarily influential player in Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the 1990s, even though the formal, constitutional position of the president was weak. ²⁹ Havel sought to imbue the office with a strong moral ethos. He also showed scepticism towards political parties.

Havel resigned in July 1992 during the dismantling of Czechoslovakia, but thanks to his great popularity and reputation abroad, he was a natural candidate for the new Czech presidency. ³⁰ Václav Klaus, the Czech prime minister and chair of the right-wing Civic Democratic Party (ODS), which dominated politics at the time, did not block Havel’s election, even though their relations were not the best. Testifying to Havel’s significant informal influence is the fact that he was consulted about the draft of the Czech constitution. He even wrote a substantial document entitled Notes on the Constitution, whose primary audience was the constitution drafters. He pleaded among other things for presidential power to appoint a caretaker technocratic cabinet that would not need to win the confidence of the Chamber. Havel’s justification of his plea is remarkable:

I have noticed that the idea of a technocratic government has met with significant resistance from MPs. I am not quite sure why, since the possibility of a technocratic government clearly strengthens the hope that parliament would not have to be dissolved. If, as far as confidence in government is concerned, a situation should arise when the president has the right to dissolve parliament, it would be advantageous for everyone involved, including parliament, if the president also had an alternative: not to dissolve parliament and appoint a technocratic government, that is a government which does not have to win a vote of confidence upon assuming office. ³¹

In practice, such a technocratic conception, with entirely unlimited power to appoint a government for a term of up to one year, would give the president excessive power. However, Havel’s proposal was not adopted.

Havel first became involved in cabinet formation after the 1996 elections. Although Klaus’s ODS won the elections, the centre-right coalition he hitherto had led—consisting of ODS and two smaller parties (the Christian Democrats and the Civic Democratic Alliance, ODA)—lost the majority in the Chamber of Deputies. However, an alternative government was difficult to imagine, especially since the most successful party of the opposition, the Social Democrats (ČSSD), was taken by surprise by its unexpectedly good showing in the elections and was unprepared to take on a governmental role. The president decided to consult the leaders of parties, omitting to invite the leaders of the Communists and the far-right Republicans. The other parties did not see these two as acceptable coalition partners; they were viewed as political pariahs and a threat to democracy. ³² Hence Havel’s position was accepted by the public as confirming the two parties’ isolation.

Miloš Zeman, the leader of the Social Democrats, showed during consultation with the president a willingness to tolerate the continuation of Klaus’s existing cabinet—under certain conditions. Remarkable in terms of cabinet formation was Zeman’s request for a joint meeting under the president’s patronage of party leaders from the three parties in government hitherto and the ČSSD, which was granted. In making this request, Zeman evidently intended to weaken Klaus’s negotiating position as incumbent prime minister and used President Havel as his ally.

The success of Zeman’s efforts is well documented in a proclamation Havel made about government formation, in which he considered the continuation of the existing coalition, albeit necessitating an agreement with the ČSSD, as the optimal course. The president intended to appoint as prime minister such a figure “who would enjoy a broad political consensus.” ³³ Officially, Havel entrusted Klaus merely with negotiations about a new government and not formation of a government, as the incumbent prime minister had demanded. In doing so, the president in fact left open the issue of whether Klaus really would become prime minister again. Havel re-appointed Klaus as prime minister only after almost a month of inter-party bargaining. Therefore, it was characteristic of the historic first government formation in the independent Czechia that the president put out political feelers and excluded some actors from bargaining, which corresponds to the regulator pattern. Havel also created a constitutional convention under which the president entrusts someone with carrying out negotiations on the government. ³⁴ This person then becomes the new prime minister. This procedure has been used in many subsequently cases, though its details have not always been the same.

An example of this is provided by the next coalition bargaining in late 1997, after Klaus’s government had foundered on coalition disputes and intra-party conflict within the ODS. Havel’s personal temperament that tended to background political parties became manifest on this occasion. It is true that the president had entrusted a leader of one of the smaller parties in government, the Christian Democrat Josef Lux, with conducting talks about a new government, but Lux’s mission was merely to sound out potential options. When he finished in mid-December 1997, Lux proposed several alternatives to the president. Havel described the one “with approximately equal representation of partisans and non-partisans” as “realistic and agreeable to him.” ³⁵ He then appointed a technocrat—the governor of the central bank Josef Tošovský—as the new prime minister. In putting together the cabinet, Tošovský proceeded in the spirit of Havel’s conception. In addition to politicians from two smaller government parties—that is, Lux’s Christian Democrats and the ODA—and members of the anti-Klaus faction in the ODS who were in the process of establishing a new party at the time, around a third of the new cabinet were without party affiliations (though some of them had been proposed by parties). In nominating ministers, Tošovský enjoyed significant autonomy and did not even heed some of Lux’s designs. ³⁶

Although the president did not interfere in the nominations of specific ministers, his positive attitude towards the new government was evident. He made a strong statement several days before voting on the motion of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies that relied on the fact that the constitution specified no time frame: “if the government does not win confidence, I’ll spend weeks seeking such a man or woman who will stand a chance of winning confidence. Should that [further] government not win confidence, I’ll spend weeks and weeks searching for another, each of which will have a month to produce a policy statement.” ³⁷ Havel’s proclamation was chiefly aimed at the Social Democrats, who were very reluctant to support the government. Their main objective was to have an early election as soon as possible, and they were worried that supporting the government might damage them with voters. It is remarkable that the president “forgot” in his proclamation that, were Tošovský to fail in the Chamber, he would have only one further attempt to appoint a prime minister.

However, beyond exerting pressure prior to the vote of confidence, Havel also promised that he would do his utmost to bring about an early election, a proposal that Prime Minister Tošovský seconded. Thus, the Tošovský government was ultimately supported not only by the parties involved, or more precisely in the case of the ODS, that faction which was in the process of breaking away, but also the Social Democrats. To sum up, the president played an important role throughout the whole process, not only in the nomination and appointment stages but also in the stage where parliament confirmed the government. The non-partisan prime minister played his part in what was not merely political theatre, fully in the spirit that Havel had envisaged. Undoubtedly, Havel behaved like a co-designer. It was, to be sure, only a situation and a practice that was not supposed to continue, because it was a technocratic caretaker government. Havel’s role during the government crisis of the turn of 1997/1998 proved politically controversial, with direct consequences for the next government formation after the early elections in June 1998. Having consulted with the leaders of parliamentary parties (ignoring, as was now the tradition, the leader of the Communists; the far-right Republicans had failed to be elected to the Chamber), he entrusted Zeman, the leader of the winning party, with government negotiations. Zeman managed to convince only Lux’s Christian Democrats to participate in government, and they rejected any government involving the communists or relying on their support. The only other potential partner for a majority coalition—the new Freedom Union, which had split from the ODS—refused to collaborate with Zeman. For that reason, the formateur surprisingly came into agreement with Klaus’s ODS, which came second in the elections. The ODS committed itself to tolerate a minority social-democratic cabinet at the vote of confidence in exchange for certain concessions. The form of this tolerance was the same as in 1996, that is, the MPs of the opposition party (ODS) left the Chamber before the vote.

This so-called Opposition Agreement between ČSSD and ODS surprised the public and elicited loud resistance from Havel, who rejected it as “an attack on the spirit of the constitution and the spirit of parliamentary democracy.” ³⁸ This seemed like an attempt to maintain the role of the regulator. Nonetheless, the political alliance of the two parties that controlled a substantial majority of seats in the Chamber quickly pushed Havel into the defensive notary position. Only a few days after the Agreement had been concluded, Havel appointed Zeman prime minister and subsequently other ministers in his government as well. The president also gave in on another specific point. Originally, he semi-publicly aired his reservations about the foreign and interior ministers with respect to their earlier histories and ties, deemed by him problematic. This was the first instance of a president’s unwillingness to appoint government members, yet Prime Minister Zeman responded by strictly rejecting any personnel changes in the proposed government.

The last time in his presidency that Havel appointed government was after the 2002 elections, won once again by the ČSSD. Theoretically, a minority social-democratic cabinet supported by the Communists or the ODS was not out of question. After the election results were announced, the new social-democratic leader Vladimír Špidla proposed a coalition government with two smaller parties, the Christian Democrats and the Freedom Union, which chimed in with the president’s opinion. Hence government formation was uncontroversial: following on consultations with party leaders (bar the Communists, as always), the president limited himself to entrusting the bargaining to Špidla and duly appointed him prime minister once negotiations were finished. We can talk about the president-notary again, but now with positive acceptance of the proposal.

Václav Klaus: Negotiating a Complicated Political Reality

Havel’s successor in the presidential office, Václav Klaus, led one party for a number of years—the ODS. It was only shortly before his election as president that he moved to become the party’s honorary chair. The contrast between the first and second president was made stronger by their professional differences and their divergent values. Unlike Havel the moralising and free-thinking intellectual, Klaus had an economic education and had been one of the crucial figures of the market reforms during the 1990s who considered Friedrich von Hayek and Margaret Thatcher his intellectual paragons. Before and during his presidency, Klaus established his political vocabulary and his position on issues such as his scepticism towards European integration and towards further enlargement of human rights, thus essentially profiling himself as Havel’s intellectual antagonist. ³⁹

Klaus owed his election as president in 2003 not just to the ODS but also to his pragmatic winning of cross-parliamentary support. He promised the MPs of parties in government that he would respect the results of parliamentary elections and would do nothing to trigger an early election. The oppositional Communists, though politically distant from Klaus, welcomed his rejection of “empty, exaggerated anti-communism” as well as his Euroscepticism. ⁴⁰

Klaus’s negotiations with the Communists about their support for his election elicited criticism, as the party was still seen as a pariah by at least some among the general public. Still, the existing practice of the president ignoring the Communists at government formation was not fundamentally altered for the immediate future; in fact, the new president accepted the role as a brake on their influence over governmental power. This first became manifest in spring 2004, when social-democratic Prime Minister Špidla resigned after his party failed in European elections. His resignation meant the end of the government; however, all three parties in government intended to continue the existing coalition and proposed Stanislav Gross, a ČSSD politician, as the new prime minister. In consulting with party representatives about a new government, Klaus ignored the leader of the Communists, as well as that of the Freedom Union that had split off from the ODS several years previously, justifying this by citing the allegedly low importance of this party. As he had promised at his election, Klaus respected the results of parliamentary elections and did not support the ODS’s call for early elections. The president entrusted Gross with government negotiations and promised to appoint him prime minister as long as certain conditions were met. Klaus wanted Gross’s government to be a majority one that would not rely on the Communists during the vote of confidence. ⁴¹

In effect, this limited Gross’s options to a continuation of the existing coalition as the ODS rejected any form of cooperation with the ČSSD. Given the obvious disloyalty of some of the MPs of the governing coalition, Klaus stipulated specific and unprecedented proof of their support in the form of their signatures on a document backing the government. Despite some difficulties, Gross managed to fulfil Klaus’s conditions and was appointed prime minister. Klaus, in fact, played the role of regulator, similar to Havel in 1996.

Another example of how Klaus maintained his regulator role is when, a couple of months later, he again hindered potential Communist Party influence over the executive, in response to the scandals involving the prime minister that threatened Gross’s cabinet. During this government crisis he proved an active player, blocking Gross’s efforts to hold on to the prime minister’s office through an alliance with the Communists. The result was a new cabinet led by Jiří Paroubek (again from the ČSSD), and the existing government coalition was preserved. ⁴²

The situation that arose after the next parliamentary elections in June 2006 resulted in the longest and most complicated government bargaining in the history of Czechia. Preceded by a very confrontational campaign, the elections ended in a stalemate. In the two-hundred–head Chamber of Deputies the poll produced, on one side, the Social Democrats and Communists and, opposing them, the ODS, Christian Democrats, and Greens, each camp holding exactly half of the seats. Given the repeated twists and turns during negotiations this article focuses here solely on the main points connected with the president. Klaus’s initial involvement in the bargaining was minimal; he merely entrusted Mirek Topolánek, the chair of the ODS party that emerged victorious from the elections, with negotiating the new government. The president entered into negotiations decisively only at a point almost two months after the elections; the bargaining had not led to a result and, what was more, the warring parties failed even to elect the leadership of the Chamber of Deputies. At that time Klaus held an informal lunch with the chairs of all parliamentary parties, including the Communists, and an agreement was reached about a temporary speaker of the Chamber. ⁴³ Topolánek was then appointed prime minister, but he failed to negotiate a majority of support in the Chamber and the single-party minority ODS cabinet appointed by the president was not successful in winning the vote of confidence in early October 2006.

Up to this point, Klaus’s behavior had been close to the notary. However, circumstances allowed the president to propose the option of a presidential technocratic caretaker government. This idea was not at all sympathetic to the party leaders, however, and Klaus decided not to nominate his own PM. The other discussed idea of a grand coalition, based on an alliance between the ODS and the ČSSD, supplemented with smaller parties bar the Communists (though Klaus did consult with them about potential government options), seemed more viable for some time. The strong pressure exerted by the president with the aim of installing such a broad coalition government was exemplified by his speech at the ODS congress, in which he argued that the “digging of insurmountable trenches and barriers” had negative consequences, and that a “simplified black-and-white vision” was changing politics into “clashes between irreconcilable fans of football clubs.” ⁴⁴ Klaus’s decision to re-appoint Topolánek as prime minister in November 2006 was probably also a way of pushing the ODS towards a government alliance with the ČSSD. This step indicates an attempt to play the role of co-designer, which can be also inferred from the fact that for the first time in history, the president omitted the nomination stage of GFP entirely. However, given the long months of bargaining, it would have made little sense to insist on having one.

Nevertheless, Klaus’s idea about a government coalition between the ČSSD and the ODS was rejected by the leadership of the latter and Topolánek subsequently attempted to create a coalition with the Christian Democrats and the Greens. The situation in the Chamber had changed since the elections in that Topolánek managed to win over two MPs who had left the Social Democrats. This result of Topolánek’s new mission went entirely against the notions entertained by the president; Klaus had sharply rejected a solution based on “renegade” MPs ever since the elections. From his point of view, in a government relying on such MPs the “quality of trust” was in question; he spoke of “suspicions of political corruption.” ⁴⁵

In December 2006, Klaus went as far as refusing to appoint the ministers of Topolánek’s new (second) government, though he also admitted publicly that this was merely a political gesture that would result in a short delay in their appointment. He declared his objections to several government members, most vocally the foreign minister, who was found wanting by Klaus for, among other things, having lived most of his life outside Czechia. In the end, Topolánek’s second cabinet did win the Chamber’s confidence in January 2007, with the assistance provided by the two ex-ČSSD MPs. ⁴⁶ Thus, Klaus finally accepted a government that he had previously rejected publicly in strong terms, as Havel had done with Zeman’s government in 1998. Similarly to 1998, through the will of some parties, the notions entertained by the president were successfully blocked and the head of state was pushed into the role of notary.

Remarkably, the main actor in the government that emerged against the president’s will was the party from which he himself had come. This had serious consequences for his relationship with the prime minister and with the ODS itself. After Klaus was re-elected president—the ODS having contributed significantly to his re-election—their relations deteriorated further. In late 2008 the head of state resigned his honorary chair of the ODS. The changed relationship between the president and the ODS influenced cabinet formation in spring 2009. The Social Democrats and the Communists pushed through a motion of no confidence in Topolánek’s government, in which effort they were aided by the crumbling unity of government parliamentary parties. The ODS hoped that the cabinet could remain in power until the end of the Czech presidency of the EU then underway, but Klaus rejected that, as he did the party’s request that he again ask Topolánek to negotiate a new cabinet. Paradoxically, the president was much less accommodating of a party that he had himself led for many years than of the Social Democrats when the latter switched its prime ministers in 2004 and 2005.

There was another paradox: fearing Klaus would push for his own solution—a presidential technocratic government of some sort—party leaders of the ODS and the ČSSD formed an alliance. The two large parties, or more precisely their leaders Topolánek and Paroubek, assisted by the Christian Democrats and the Greens, instantly arrived at an agreement to create a nonpartisan caretaker cabinet relying on parties. The president accepted this and appointed the chair of the Czech Statistical Office, Jan Fischer, as prime minister, a choice made by the leaders of the ODS and ČSSD. ⁴⁷ Similarly the president then appointed ministers designated by the ODS, ČSSD, and Greens (the Christian Democrats having withdrawn from the bargaining about Fischer’s cabinet). Unlike Tošovský in the late 1990s, the designated technocratic prime minister had little influence over the choice of particular ministers. Formally, all government members were non-partisans, though almost all had a party link. Unlike Tošovský’s cabinet, the president in this case did not initiate a non-partisan cabinet, but merely confirmed it formally by the act of appointment. Klaus in this situation eventually played the role of a notary, although he had initially attempted to gain much greater influence over the GFP.

Klaus’s relationship with the ODS soon underwent another interesting change. With Topolánek resigning the ODS leadership shortly before the parliamentary elections in May 2010, the president reviewed his opinion of the Civic Democrats, speaking of “positive developments” within the party. ⁴⁸ After elections and consultations with party leaders (including the leader of the Communists), Klaus entrusted Petr Nečas, the leader of the ODS at the time, to lead government negotiations, justifying his stance by the agreement concluded immediately after the elections between the ODS and two other parties, TOP 09 and Public Affairs. This agreement secured for the emerging coalition a significant majority in the Chamber.

And yet, for the first time in the history of Czech cabinet formation the convention was not respected that the leader of the party that won the elections should be asked to negotiate the new government. The elections were narrowly won by the Social Democrats; the ODS was placed second. Klaus deflected the Social Democrats’ criticism by referring to the agreement about government cooperation that had already been made, and by arguing that the allegedly complicated economic and political situation necessitated that the “formation of a new government be quick and efficient.” ⁴⁹ With negotiations concluded, the president appointed Nečas as prime minister of the new center-right government. The electoral result of the Social Democrats was widely viewed as a failure and its leader Paroubek resigned, which increased public acceptance of the steps Klaus had taken. It is nevertheless apparent that in the GFP the president acted like a regulator who preferred a center-right government rather than a politically neutral notary.

Miloš Zeman: An Attempt at a Technocratic Breakthrough

Like Václav Klaus, the third Czech president Miloš Zeman was an economist by training and had led a political party, though in his case it was the strongest party on the left, the Social Democrats. Similarly also to Klaus, Zeman came into conflict with his party after he had resigned as leader. The conflict arose during the 2003 presidential election, in which Zeman failed due to obstructions on the part of some social-democratic MPs, who were worried that if Zeman were elected he would create an alternative locus of power that would compete with the government.

Zeman’s candidacy in the historically first popular presidential election in 2013 was supported only by his marginal Party of Civic Rights–Zemanovci, and indirectly also by the communists, who did not put up their own candidate but instead spoke in favor of both Zeman and the Social Democrats’ candidate. That candidate, however, failed to make it into the run-off; the communists sided with Zeman and so did, hesitantly, the leadership of the Social Democrats. It is worth noting, however, that even prior to the first round of voting, Zeman’s candidacy was publicly supported by some Social Democrats who opposed the leader of the party Bohuslav Sobotka. ⁵⁰ The existence of a pro-Zeman faction within the ČSSD subsequently influenced the government formation processes.

Taking a leftist position, in the popular election Zeman placed his bets on defining himself in contrast to the unpopular center-right Nečas cabinet, under the banner of “Stop This Government.” He received an opportunity to put his slogan into practice in June 2013, when the government resigned due to a scandal connected with the prime minister. The parties hitherto in government, the ODS, TOP 09, and the Liberal Democratic Party, which split off from the Public Affairs party in 2012 and replaced the latter in Nečas’s cabinet, quickly came to an agreement over the continuation of the existing coalition. They asked the president to entrust Miroslava Němcová (ODS) with conducting the government negotiations. By contrast, Bohuslav Sobotka, the leader of the Social Democrats, refused to lead the negotiations; the chances of success were small and, more importantly, less than a year of the electoral term remained. The Social Democrats, aware of their high poll ratings, demanded an early election; however, they were unable to carry the motion through in the Chamber against opposition mounted by the parties of Nečas’s former coalition.

Having consulted party leaders, Zeman pointed to the promise he had made to voters, that he would not support the continuation of the existing centre-right coalition under a new prime minister. He chose Jiří Rusnok, the finance minister in a cabinet Zeman had led during the era of the Opposition Agreement, as the new prime minister. (Like Zeman, Rusnok had since parted company with the ČSSD.) The president stated that Rusnok’s government was to be “a cabinet of experts” and hence did not “necessarily have to have a political mandate.” ⁵¹ These words alluded to the fact that Rusnok’s appointment was not preceded by any sort of agreement between the president and parliamentary parties. When Havel had similarly installed the technocrat Tošovský in 1997, he did so under an agreement, or more precisely the involvement, of at least some parliamentary parties. Zeman’s procedure was also unusual in that he omitted the nomination stage entirely (i.e., entrusting a certain person to inquire into government alternatives) and proceeded directly to appoint Rusnok prime minister. The only other time this had happened was for Topolánek’s second appointment in 2006, as described above. That, however, was preceded by months spent in inter-party bargaining. To sum up, by appointing his technocratic prime minister, Zeman presented parties with a done deal and fundamentally deviated from the tradition of Czech government formation. This is a clear example of the behavior of a president creator. Responding to public outcry that he violated constitutional conventions, Zeman countered that these conventions were “totally idiotic, because if they were truly constitutional, they would have been grounded in the constitution in some way. They’re just conventions. The president, even if elected in popular elections, cannot change the constitution, but his right to change conventions that are not grounded in the constitution is of course sacrosanct.” ⁵² The image of a presidential government was bolstered by the names of some ministers who were considered Zeman’s political allies. Although the president’s precise influence over the make-up of the government is difficult to evaluate, it is nevertheless apparent that his wishes were respected, and not just in matters of personnel. ⁵³

By the time of the vote of confidence in early August 2013, the position of some parties vis-à-vis the government had changed, chiefly in consequence of pressure exerted by Zeman. The most important turnabout was witnessed in the Social Democrats, where the opinion of the pro-president faction prevailed and the party decided to support the government. Similarly, the president managed to convince the Communists and the Public Affairs party, which had only a handful of MPs since the secession of the Liberal Democratic Party. In particular, Zeman deployed the argument that should Rusnok’s cabinet fail to win confidence, a candidate of the former centre-right coalition might be next to be entrusted with government negotiations. However, he also stated that he would consider such a move, and would require the centre-right candidate to produce the signatures of at least 101 MPs, and signatures witnessed by a public notary at that. ⁵⁴ This idea, bar the public notary’s involvement, was redolent of Klaus’s demand voiced long before in connection with Gross’s cabinet formation in 2004. Still, the president kept his options open, including that of giving a second chance to Rusnok. Thus, it was impossible to rule out that Rusnok’s government would remain in office even without parliament’s confidence, perhaps even until the regular term of the next elections in spring 2014. This would, in fact, peculiarly and without a grounding in the constitution, fulfil the old idea, voiced by Václav Havel in his Notes on the Constitution in 1992, of a technocratic cabinet able to govern without parliamentary approval.

In the end Rusnok’s government narrowly failed to win the confidence of the Chamber. Fearing that the president would prolong the technocratic cabinet, a majority was quickly found in the Chamber to push through early elections; the majority of MPs of the former Nečas government coalition were among the supporters of the motion. In these October 2013 elections, several ministers of the Rusnok government stood on the ticket of the president’s party, the Zemanovci, but the party failed entirely. The ČSSD likewise met with substantial failure; although it formally won the election, it received the smallest number of votes for the last two decades. The pro-president faction in the party responded by mounting an attempt to unseat the chair Sobotka, which was preceded by a secret meeting between the faction and the president. Yet the news that the meeting had taken place and the emotive debate that surrounded the whole affair paradoxically helped Sobotka to maintain his leadership role and compromised his opponents. ⁵⁵

In the most fragmented parliament since the mid-1990s, where not even the two largest parties, the Social Democrats and ANO, had enough seats between them to command a majority, a variant of government involving the Christian Democrats alongside them ultimately proved possible. The results of the elections and of the dispute within the ČSSD limited the president’s leeway. In a situation where the outlines of the new coalition were already taking shape, he entrusted the leader of the Social Democrats Sobotka with coalition bargaining. However, Zeman soon resorted to harsh attacks on the emerging coalition, of which the strongest were publicly pronounced and ironically worded reservations about most of the proposed ministers. For instance, he questioned their qualifications to lead their ministries and, rather bizarrely, found the lists of their publications insufficient. In addition to his attacks, the president also offered his own interpretation of the constitution; in his view, the proposal of ministers as put forward by the prime minister “is not something I automatically have to accept.” ⁵⁶ The president’s “personal interviews” with all ministerial candidates provided another remarkable moment, as they were unprecedented in the history of Czech cabinet formation. Thus, Zeman radically developed the existing practice of rare exceptions to proposed ministers, as used by Havel and Klaus, into an overall examination of the cabinet members’ qualifications. It showed that Zeman was trying to maintain a role that would significantly outweigh the notary and was close to the regulator.

For these and other reasons, the GFP was rather protracted. The president only appointed the prime minister in mid-January 2014 and the other ministers two weeks later. Thus, the new government only took office three months after the elections. Throughout that period Rusnok’s cabinet remained in power, the president having extended its longevity by the steps he had decided to take.

However, Zeman did appoint Sobotka’s government finally in exactly the same line-up as the prime minister had proposed. ⁵⁷ The president’s tactics of pressure and obstruction thus failed to produce any visible outcomes, which confirms Zeman’s role as notary. Though Zeman violated a constitutional convention by appointing Rusnok’s government, he did not actually contravene another constitutional convention according to which ministers are appointed as proposed by the prime minister.

Patterns of presidential roles in the Czech GFP

The actual practice of the GFP shows a great changeability of roles of Czech presidents: it varies from notary to creator (summarization in Table 2). There were twelve government formation processes in total. We identified six notary presidents (Havel in 1998 and 2002; Klaus in 2006, 2007, and 2009; Zeman in 2014), four regulators (Havel in 1996; Klaus in 2004, 2005, and 2010), one co-designer (Havel in 1997), and one creator (Zeman in 2013).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 2

Czech Presidents in the Government Formation Process

President	Year and Prime Minister	Role of President
Havel	1996: Klaus	Regulator
	1997: Tošovský	Co-designer
	1998: Zeman	Notary (failed regulator)
	2002: Špidla	Notary
Klaus	2004: Gross	Regulator
	2005: Paroubek	Regulator
	2006: Topolánek I	Notary
	2007: Topolánek II	Notary (failed co-designer)
	2009: Fischer	Notary
	2010: Nečas	Regulator
Zeman	2013: Rusnok	Creator
	2014: Sobotka	Notary (failed regulator)

We argue that the variance results from two major factors. Firstly, the timing of the GFP is important. When the GFP directly followed parliamentary elections, the presidents were mostly much weaker. Out of six such cases, there were four notary presidents (1998, 2002, 2006, and 2014) and in two cases there were regulators (1996 and 2010). In contrast, when the GFP followed a government break-up during the electoral term of the Chamber of Deputies, presidents were significantly stronger. Out of six such cases, there were two notary presidents (2007 and 2009), two regulators (2004 and 2005), one co-designer (1997), and one creator (2013).

Secondly, it depends on the real power of parties, that is, their ability to act together as a firm parliamentary majority, which (1) does not need much help from the president in the GFP and (2) which is determined to challenge a potential attempt by the president at influencing the GFP more than the parties wish. In most cases, presidents showed their resolution to play a greater role in the GFP than a notary, but often they faced a firm parliamentary majority that actually did not allow them to exert their influence. Indeed, at least in two cases a solid parliamentary majority thwarted presidents’ overt attempts to leave a much greater imprint on the final outcome of the GFP (Havel in 1998 and Klaus in 2007). ⁵⁸

In contrast, the presidents were particularly strong in times of major political scandals, when parties’ legitimacy suffered heavily and the president could take advantage of it. The most notable examples are Havel in 1997 and Zeman in 2013. The last case is particularly important, since it was the first GFP affected by the newly popularly elected president, who made an overt attempt at becoming a ruling president through the installation of a technocratic cabinet without any agreement whatsoever with parliamentary parties. This is a clear example of capitalizing on the popular election, introduced in 2012, which gave the president legitimacy advantage. Indeed, Zeman explicitly referred to the fact that he had recently been elected by the majority of Czech voters. ⁵⁹ Moreover, the technocratic cabinet was closely tied to Zeman’s own party, which, although it lacked parliamentary representation, hoped the ministers would help it get media attention and public support in the 2013 parliamentary elections. This was, however, unsuccessful.

The step taken by Zeman was a radical breakthrough in the parliamentary regime, and a principal shift in the president’s role towards that of creator (government-maker). In doing so he destroyed a key constitutional convention linked with the parliamentary basis of the political regime. Comparing the behavior of Zeman with that of his predecessors Havel and Klaus, there is an obvious, substantial, qualitative difference. Zeman’s predecessors always appointed a government cabinet that resulted from a deal with parliamentary parties (only the Tošovský cabinet in 1997 was partly broke from the rule).

Thus, with the exception of the Rusnok cabinet (and to a certain extent the Tošovský cabinet too), parties by and large have managed to assert their will against that of the president. This has been substantially facilitated by the fact that no president has managed to create a solid and strong party backing in parliament. As a result, a political proximity between the parliamentary parties and the president plays only a marginal role in the GFP, since the presidents’ relationship to parties was ambiguous and sometimes full of paradoxes. ⁶⁰ This has been influenced by the public desire for non-partisan or so-called above-partisan presidents who are to a large extent independent of political parties. This is true even though all three presidents were close to some parties or factions. Václav Havel was never a partisan, but he had a number of political allies, particularly in the small parties (the Christian Democrats, Freedom Union, etc.). Yet he never attempted to create his own party. In contrast, Václav Klaus and Miloš Zeman had been partisan prime ministers and leaders of the then largest parties, but they resigned from their party and their relationship to their original parties became rather cold. Of the three Czech presidents, Václav Klaus enjoyed the strongest party backing, but only in the early days of his presidency. Still, the steps he took when governments led by the Social Democrats found themselves in crisis do not testify to Klaus acting as an ODS politician, although he later displayed moderate preferences for some ODS-led cabinets.

Evidently, Havel and Klaus were careful in building their ties with parties because their presidential mandates originated in parliament. This was not the case with Zeman, who has sought to create his own party backing much more purposefully. Nonetheless, his Zemanovci party failed in the 2013 elections and the pro-president faction within the Social Democrats likewise lost their standing.

Common to all three has been their ignoring of certain parties or at least creating obstacles to their participation in government negotiations or formation. This was very conspicuous with Havel, who repeatedly excluded the Communists from coalition bargaining, and also the far-right Republicans, when they held parliamentary representation. Despite formally respecting the Communists, Klaus effectively took the same position, and in fact went further by wanting signatures of “non-communist MPs” on a document pledging support for government. This approach has especially created the foundations for the role of the president-regulator. In reality, however, the presidents have not always been successful.

The high changeability of the role of the president in the GFP has one more general dimension that deserves reflection. This changeability is a symptom of a clear failure to establish a stable framework for Czech executive politics. After more than a quarter-century of democracy, no clear and predictable pattern has emerged that is able to provide a good basis for democratic governance. It is beyond the scope of this text to identify deeper causes of this fact. Some of the causes were indicated above, some others are probably associated with the heritage of the past or, more broadly, with the political culture. However, the uncertainties and risks that this changeability creates for a democratic regime, its constitutional practice, and conventions are obvious.

Conclusion

Our article presents an original classification of the roles presidents play in the GFP. Having applied the classification to the Czech case, we demonstrate a great variance in the degree of influence presidents exert over the GFP, although formal constitutional rules regulating the GFP have remained unaltered since 1993. To slightly amend Maurice Duverger’s famous statement on the divergence between formal constitutional rules and actual constitutional practice, we can speak about “uniformity of rules, diversity of games.” ⁶¹

The variance of the roles presidents played in the GFP results mainly from the timing of parliamentary (and sometimes also presidential) elections and from the solidity of parliamentary parties and their ability to act independently of the head of state. In contrast, political proximity between president and parliamentary parties does not appear as the key to understanding the level of influence presidents exert over the GFP in most cases.

As far as the Czech constitution is concerned, its importance lies in the fact that it offers the president a substantial and not entirely clearly defined space in the government formation process. In availing themselves of this space, all three presidents very often refused to play the role of a notary who merely confirmed the results of negotiations between parties or provided a decorative façade for the process. Havel, Klaus, and Zeman sought to play very active roles and, circumstances permitting, push through their own political ideas and attitudes.

As for the effect of the popular election, it is beyond doubt that it potentially boosts overall presidential power ⁶² and in particular it gives the president additional leverage in the GFP, but only if he enjoys the advantage of legitimacy over the parliament. But what is more important, the president has not been able to push political parties into the background and push through his own government. The president’s installation of the 2013 Rusnok technocratic cabinet was only a temporary solution; the party leaders once again managed to secure the main say for themselves, and the president was forced into the role of head of state in a parliamentary regime. The increased activism of the popularly elected head of state hit the barriers erected by the parties—barriers that the president, lacking his own party backing in parliament, has been unable to overcome.

The classification proved highly useful to yield a comparative analysis of all the GFPs in the Czech Republic. In order to confirm its general usefulness, further research is needed to broaden the set of analyzed countries and to apply it in a wider comparative framework.