Občanská Demokratická aliance

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Občanská Demokratieická aliance
Democratic Citizens' Alliance
Logo of the ODA
founding November 1989
resolution 2007
Headquarters U Společenské Zahrady 6,
140 00 Prague 4
Alignment Liberalism , conservatism
Colours) blue
European party EPP (observer, 1990-2001)
ELDR (from 2001)

Občanská democická aliance ( ODA ), German Democratic Citizens' Alliance , was a liberal-conservative party in the Czech Republic that existed from 1989 to 2007.

history

Foundation in the period of transition

From circles of the Czechoslovak dissident movement of the 1980s, after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, the Občanská Demokratická aliance was founded . In 1990 she was admitted as an observer to the European People's Party , the European union of Christian Democratic and center-right parties. In the 1990 elections, the members of the ODA ran as part of the citizens' forum ( Občanské fórum ). It was not until 1992 that it appeared as an independent party. Part of the small Liberálně democická strana (LDS; Liberal Democratic Party) merged with the ODA in 1992, which also became a partner of the Liberal International .

Government participation (1992–1998)

ODA was involved with ministers in the governments of the Czech Republic of Václav Klaus 1992-1998 and in the transitional cabinet of Tošovský in 1998. Vladimír Dlouhý was Minister of Economy of the CSFR from 1989 to 1992, and Czech Minister of Industry and Trade from 1992 to 1996, and his successor Karel Kühnl , who served from 1997 to 1998, was a member of the ODA until 1998.

ODA achieved its greatest successes in the 1990s. In the election to the Czech National Council in 1992, she received 5.9% of the votes and 14 seats, but with 4.98% and 4.08%, respectively, she failed to make it into both chambers of the then still existing parliament of the ČSFR. December 1992 ceased operations with the dissolution of the entire state. In 1996, the party won 6.4% of the vote and 13 seats in the elections to Poslanecká sněmovna (House of Representatives), which emerged from the Czech National Council. In the early elections in 1998, however, she no longer achieved a seat in the House of Representatives.

Loss of importance (from 1998)

After the collapse of the Klaus coalition government, the ODA was increasingly preoccupied with itself by internal party quarrels and gradually lost its influence. In 1997, co-founder Ivan Mašek left the party. In 1998 the ODA received four more seats in the Senate , and in the elections of 2000 and 2004 it received one more mandate.

After the parliamentary elections in 1998, ODA formed the so-called coalition of four together with three other center parties, KDU-ČSL and the US and DEU parties, which later merged to form the US-DEU . This alliance was supposed to serve as an alternative offer to the cooperation of the two big parties ČSSD and ODS in the House of Representatives with the so-called opposition treaty. B. 2000 relatively successful in the elections for representations of the Czech Regions ( Kraj ). The previous failures of ODA in the elections, however, led to ODA over-indebtedness and disputes within the coalition of four. Politicians like Václav Jehlička and Vlasta Parkanová switched to KDU-ČSL , Jiří Pospíšil to ODS.

At the European level, ODA switched from the Christian Democratic EPP to the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party (ELDR), where it received full membership at the end of 2001. In 2002, the KDU-ČSL terminated its cooperation with ODA, which was in debt with 70 million Czech crowns, in order to initiate a change of course towards the ČSSD . The ODA candidates were then removed from the joint list of candidates for the 2002 parliamentary elections, which meant the de facto end of the coalition of four. In the elections to the House of Representatives in 2002, ODA only achieved 0.5% of the vote and thus clearly missed re-entry into the House of Representatives.

In the 2004 elections to the EU Parliament , ODA, as a member of the liberal ELDR, formed the electoral alliance Unie liberálních domokratů (Union of Liberal Democrats) together with the likewise liberal parties Cesta změny , Unie svobody - Demokratieická unie and Liberální reformní strana . However, this remained without a mandate with 1.7% of the vote.

Most recently, the ODA had increasingly sunk into insignificance and, with Karel Schwarzenberg, only had one member of the Senate. On December 1, 2007, the party resolved to dissolve itself with effect from December 31, 2007. Schwarzenberg participated in the founding of the TOP 09 party in 2009 and became its chairman.

In September 2016, the Czech entrepreneur Pavel Sehnal initiated the re-establishment of the party. In terms of programs and personnel, however, this party only partially follows the tradition of the earlier ODA. Several members of the "old" ODA, e.g. B. the former chairman and member of parliament Daniel Kroupa distanced themselves from the new foundation.

Chairperson

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vít Hloušek, Pavel Pšeja: Europeanization of Political Parties and the party system in the Czech Republic. In: Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics , 2009.
  2. ^ Thomas Jansen, Steven Van Hecke: At Europe's Service: The Origins and Evolution of the European People's Party. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2011, p. 76.
  3. ↑ Mats Öhlén: The Eastward expansion of the European Liberal Party Family. The Relation between the European Liberal Party Family and Liberal Parties in Central and Eastern Europe. XV. Conference of the Nordic Political Science Association (NoPSA), Tromsø, 6-9 August 2008, p. 19.
  4. ↑ a b c d Jitka Mládková: Former ruling party disappeared from the Czech political scene. Radio Prague, January 3, 2008.
  5. ↑ Lex Corijn, Thomas Krings: Liberalism in the European Union. The Way Forward. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2004, p. 128.