Jiří Paroubek

29. 5. 2010 / Fabiano Golgo

The controversial former premier announced he would stand down as party leader between 7 and 10 days after election results that gave the Social Democrats victory in number of votes for one party, but not enough to form a leftist government coalition. Paroubek, with his controversial wife on his side, announced the decision was a personal one, taking into account that the party needed new faces, to modernize itself. He added that the election result was a defeat for ordinary people and said the party will, in the upcoming days, order sociological researches to analyse why the final results were so at odds with the pre-election opinion polls. ČSSD will be run by deputy chairman Bohuslav Sobotka until a new leader is chosen.

"I admit that we expected a better result...... For me personally it leads to the result of leaving the post of head of the Social Democrat party," Paroubek told a news conference.

Paroubek, 57, was a divisive leader, known for an obsession with opinion polls. He studied economics and between 1976 and 1990 he worked as the main economist and then as the Director of the state-run company, Restaurace a Jidelny, or Restaurants and Cafeterias.

Paroubek joined the so-called Czechoslovak Socialist Party in 1970 and became a member of its Central Committee in 1982. He left this communist-affiliated party in 1986.

After the Communist regime fell in 1989, Paroubek joined the Social Democrats and became active in regional politics - he worked in Prague municipality for over 14 years.

In terms of top- level politics, Paroubek appeared quite recently.

Paroubek was elected Prime Minister on 25 April 2005 after his predecessor, Stanislav Gross, resigned, anticipating charges of corruption.

He served as the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 25 April 2005 to 16 August 2006. But in August 2005 he apparently made a political mistake by condoning the harsh police handling of young techno music fans at the CzechTek, a semi-legal dance (rave) festival.

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Obsah vydání | Pondělí 2.8. 2010