Czech President appoints new prime minister

Mr. Rusnok, 52 years old, served as Czech Finance Minister in 2001-2002 under President Zeman.

Czech President Milos Zeman on June 25 appointed economic adviser Jiri Rusnok as prime minister, replacing his predecessor P. Necas who resigned last weekend over a corruption and espionage scandal. “The new government is like a brigade of volunteer firefighters to put out fires started by others. I hope that the new government, made up of neutral politicians, will ensure that political and economic scandals are investigated,” he said.

Mr Rusnok, 52, served as finance minister under Mr Zeman in 2001-2002 and as industry and trade minister. He is now chairman of the board of a pension fund. However, Prime Minister-designate Rusnok and his cabinet will have to survive a confidence vote in parliament to govern the country until the next general election, scheduled for May 2014.

For his part, he said it would take him two weeks to form a technocratic government of experts: “We will prepare the state budget. This is the basic task of the government. Members of parliament will have to decide, either they will have meaningless opinions or do as the voters have empowered them.”

According to analysts, President Zeman's decision to appoint the prime minister has sparked conflict with the parties in the ruling center-right coalition, which had previously put forward its own candidate for the position of new cabinet head. In an initial reaction, Miroslav Kalousek, Vice President of the TOP09 Party in the outgoing ruling coalition, said that Mr. Rusnok's cabinet would not be able to survive a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. And if this becomes a reality, the Czech Republic will continue to be plunged into political instability.

Earlier, on June 19, the ruling center-right Civic Democratic Party (ODS) nominated Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ms. Miroslava Nemcova, for the position of prime minister of the country. She is the fourth most popular politician in the Czech Republic and received the support of 33% of the country's people.

The Czech Republic fell into a political crisis when Prime Minister Necas resigned on June 17 amid the arrest of a series of his close aides and political allies on charges of involvement in a corruption and espionage scandal. This means that the Czech government led by Mr. Necas must also resign./.

According to VOV - DT