Unie svobody - Demokratická unie
Unie svobody - Demokratická unie ( US-DEU , German Freedom Union - Democratic Union ) was a liberal - conservative party in the Czech Republic . The Unie svobody was formed in 1998 as a splinter group of the ODS . In 2001 it merged with the extra-parliamentary Demokratická unie . From 2002 to 2006 the US-DEU was involved in the government as a junior partner. From 2006 it was no longer represented in parliament, and in 2011 it dissolved.
Alignment
The party advocated a free market economy . It decidedly required less state and more market. In particular, she was committed to rapid privatization by selling government shares to banks and semi-public companies. The aim was to create a standardized, transparent capital market with better protection for small shareholders. She also strived for decentralization . The party received support mainly from younger and better educated voters.
history
The foundation of the Unie svobody ("Freedom Union") was decided in January 1998. It emerged from the split from Občanská Demokratieická strana (ODS), which was involved in a party donation scandal at the end of 1997. Its first chairman was Jan Ruml , a well-known former dissident who had been Minister of the Interior from 1992 to 1997. The US received 8.6% of the vote and 9 parliamentary seats in the 1998 general election, when it ran for the first time. After the ČSSD formed a minority government tolerated by the ODS after the elections , the "bourgeois" parties US, KDU-ČSL , ODA and DEU joined together to form the so-called coalition of four (Čtyřkoalice), which was very successful in the Senate and district elections in 2000 ; the coalition became the strongest force in the Senate and in 5 of 13 boroughs. In 2000, Karel Kühnl replaced Ruml at the top of the party.
At the turn of the year 2001/02, the smaller, conservative anti-communist party Demokratická unie (DEU) , founded in 1994, was integrated into the Freedom Union. Since then the party has been called Unie svobody - Demokratická unie . The new chairwoman was Hana Marvanová. After a complicated development and the departure of ODA from the coalition of four and the integration of the DEU, the newly formed US-DEU entered the House of Representatives elections in 2002 in an electoral alliance with the KDU-ČSL ; this alliance was commonly called Koalice ('coalition'). In the elections on 14./15. June 2002 the “coalition” reached 14.2 percent of the vote and won 31 of 200 parliamentary seats, 9 of which went to the US-DEU. With this result - the fourth strongest force - the coalition fell well short of its own election target, Hana Marvanová resigned as party leader after the elections.
The party was then provisionally led for some time by Ivan Pilip and Petr Mareš. KDU-ČSL and US-DEU entered the government of Prime Minister Vladimír Špidla (ČSSD) as junior partners . The Freedom Union provided three ministers: Petr Mareš for science, Pavel Němec for regional development and Vladimír Mlynář for information technology. After the resignation of Prime Minister Špidla, the US-DEU continued the coalition with the Social Democrats under Stanislav Gross . The Freedom Union received the departments for Justice (Pavel Němec), Defense (Karel Kühnl) and IT (Mlynář further). Pavel Němec became the new party chairman, who was confirmed in office in December 2005 (six months before the elections). The US-DEU remained in government even after Gross' resignation and Jiří Paroubek's takeover.
The Freedom Union entered the 2006 Chamber of Deputies elections alone, without the KDU-ČSL, and only received 0.3% of the vote. The party was therefore no longer represented in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament after 2006 and also lost its last senator in the 2008 Senate elections. Because of the poor performance, Pavel Němec resigned after the 2006 elections and was replaced by Jan Hadrava. In 2007 Jan Černý took over the leadership of the party, but it was no longer successful in any election. According to information on the homepage, the US-DEU ceased operations on January 1, 2011 and has gone into liquidation.
Election results
| choice | be right | percent | Number of MPs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 1) | 513 596 | 8.60% | 19th |
| 2002 2) | 680 671 | 14.27% | 8 3) |
| 2006 | 16 457 | 0.30% | 0 |
structure
The party originally (shortly after it was founded) had 3,000 to 4,000 members, but no more recent reliable information is available. However, it was active in all 14 regions ( kraj ) of the Czech Republic.
Party leader
- 1998–1999 Jan Ruml
- 2000–2001 Karel Kühnl
- 2001–2002 Hana Marvanová
- 2002-2003 Ivan Pilip
- 2003-2004 Petr Mareš
- 2004-2006 Pavel Němec
- 2006-2007 Jan Hadrava
- 2007–2010 Jan Černý
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Florian Eckert: From plan to market. Party politics and privatization processes in Eastern Europe. VS - Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15703-0 , p. 107.
- ↑ Florian Eckert: From plan to market. Party politics and privatization processes in Eastern Europe. VS - Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15703-0 , p. 108.