Patrik EICHLER

Director, Masaryk Democratic Academy

In the parliamentary elections of October 2025, Social Democratic candidates ran on the lists of the national-conservative movement Stačilo! (‘It is Enough!’). Their attempt to return to the Chamber of Deputies failed. The current political scene in Czechia appears to be able to function without the Social Democrats. Social issues are no longer at the centre of political conflict.

The election week began optimistically for the Social Democratic leadership. Before the summer, the party had decided to nominate its candidates on the lists of Stačilo! movement. This political formation, chosen by communist politicians as a new tool for their ambitions, was polling at over 7.5 per cent.

The cooperation of Social Democracy with Stačilo! – a movement built on the foundations of the Communist Party and several smaller nationalist groups – triggered a series of internal crises within Social Democracy during the first half of the year, including the resignation of some of its former leading figures. From the perspective of the Social Democratic leadership, joining the coalition was a pragmatic decision. First, an independent candidacy would have ended in disaster anyway – polls in the first half of the year gave the party only around 2 per cent support. Second, joining forces with a movement built on communist foundations presented an opportunity to bring social issues back to the forefront.

In the final days before the election, however, the strength of the anti-government camp’s hegemon – Andrej Babiš’s ANO movement (Patriots for Europe) – became evident. Babiš managed to push the Stačilo! movement below the 5-per-cent electoral threshold and deprived the other major opposition movement – the national-populist Freedom and Direct Democracy (Europe of Sovereign Nations) – of between one third and half of his own party’s support. 

The Social Democratic leadership elected in October 2024 (after the previous leadership resigned following the debacle in the European elections) sought a way out of a crisis it had not created. The textbook left-right opposition between the Social Democracy and the economically neoliberal yet socially conservative Civic Democratic Party (European Conservatives and Reformists) lasted for roughly two decades, until the summer of 2013. After that, the main axis of political conflict shifted to debates over the legacy of the post-communist economic transformation and the issue of political corruption. Social Democracy – once one of the pillars of Czechia’s politics in the 1990s – has had no effective way to take successfully part in this debate.

Thanks to Social Democracy’s involvement, the Stačilo! movement’s programme included rapid wage increases, linking the retirement age to healthy life expectancy, five weeks of vacation, strengthening trade unions in companies, establishing a state housing fund to provide affordable rental apartments, and reducing electricity prices by nationalising the semi-state-owned energy company ČEZ.

During the election campaign, however, Social Democratic candidates had to grapple with questions concerning the country’s geopolitical orientation. The Stačilo! movement was the only one that persisted until the end in calling for a referendum on withdrawal from the EU and NATO. Another problem for the election alliance was a series of scandals involving candidates from other member formations. Although the Social Democratic leadership supported NATO and EU membership, its representatives were repeatedly drawn into foreign policy debates, lacking space to focus on their social agenda.

The Social Democratic leadership viewed participation in the Stačilo! lists as an opportunity to return to the Chamber of Deputies – the centre of political power. The Christian Democrats and the small neoliberal party TOP 09 have taken a similar approach: without their joint candidacy with the Civic Democratic Party in the SPOLU coalition, they would stand no chance of independent parliamentary representation. In these elections, the Green Party returned to the Chamber of Deputies after a fifteen-year absence, winning two seats through its participation on the Czech Pirate Party’s lists.

However, the Social Democratic participation on the Stačilo! lists was not well received in public debate – not only because of geopolitical issues and the long-standing anti-communist narrative, but also due to attacks by some candidates on journalists, students, public media and the courts. A week before the elections, the Stačilo! leadership appeared together with leaders of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement at a joint demonstration asking the country’s president not to interfere with the outcome of the parliamentary elections. The internal opposition in the Social Democratic party offered an alternative position in the first half of the year: not competing for representation in the Chamber of Deputies (for example, by running only a low-profile campaign) but avoiding cooperation with controversial partners.

The party leadership’s attempt to return to the Chamber of Deputies through a broader political cooperation failed. The election defeat once again led to the resignation of the entire leadership. After just one year, the party now faces another extraordinary congress. Finding a way out of the crisis will be difficult, partly because of the party’s long-time personnel shortage. Other self-proclaimed left-wing or quasi-left-wing formations in Czechia, however, won only a fraction of a per cent of the votes and are far more a part of the Czech left’s problems than of its solution.

There is no simple solution to the current situation. Expectations that someone will actively thematise emancipation agendas are now more closely associated with the Pirates (Greens/EFA) and the Mayors and Independents movement (EPP). The ANO movement has taken over the social agenda. A non-parliamentary party cannot successfully pursue transactional politics. The core problem lies in the different perceptions of cultural and social emancipation. Issues such as minority rights or gender equality are also promoted by right-wing actors who otherwise advocate a minimal role for the state and an individualistic ideology that has been deeply rooted in Czechia since the 1990s.

Part of the left, on the other hand, espouses ‘anti-woke’ attitudes without realising that this does nothing to challenge national or global capitalism. Only a small segment of the left frames the issue of social equality as a critique of the economic system – a system whose transformation is essential for achieving genuine equality.

Today, Social Democracy in Czechia as a whole lacks ideological and programmatic coherence, a cooperative cultural and academic environment, and the capacity to mobilise local elites. Renewing political organisation – with a focus on mobilising mobilisable leaders – may be a step toward restoring the political strength of the progressive movement in the future. There will be no shortage of issues to address in any new government arrangement. One of the proposals raised by the far right – with whom the victorious ANO movement began negotiations after the elections – is to abolish support for children with special needs in schools. This is not only an attack on the emancipation of these children, but also on their parents, who rely on public support and are thereby freed to pursue other work.

Where success cannot be expected, however, is in continuing efforts to mobilise based on class consciousness. Social classes undoubtedly exist in Czechia, with considerable differences in wealth and income, and both poverty and wealth are inherited. Class consciousness, however, no longer functions as a self-identifying in progressive politics. In any case, support arises from action, so it will be necessary to engage in political battles across a range of issues. The Czech Social Democracy still retains a real estate; it can mobilise resources and remain active in political struggles. However, the depth of their current crisis is unprecedented in the country’s modern history.

Photo credits: SOCDEM