Illustrative photo – Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Radek Vondráček (pictured on January 14, 2020).
Prague – The opposition proposal for the dismissal of the Speaker of the House Markéta Pekarová Adamová (TOP 09) considers her predecessor in office Radek Vondráček (ANO) to be a political gesture. According to him, due to the distribution of forces in the lower chamber, the opposition is aware that it will not succeed. Pekarová Adamová sees the opposition's inability to impress the public behind its progress. Both politicians said this in today's Otázky Václav Moravec on Czech TV. Deputies could consider the motion to dismiss the chairwoman at a meeting that will begin on April 4.
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The opposition is particularly bothered by the procedure of Pekarová Adamová in the parliamentary approval of the reduction of the June valorization of pensions. According to opposition representatives, she sided with the government camp in some cases during the management of the meeting, which was accompanied by extensive obstructions. “We feel that the president is wearing a party shirt,” said Vondráček today, who now heads the constitutional and legal committee in the House of Representatives.
Opposition MPs ANO and SPD collected enough signatures for the motion to recall Pekarová Adamová and it made it onto the agenda of the next regular meeting of the House of Representatives. “The parliamentary arithmetic is basically inexorable, simple. We know that we don't have the votes for it, so it's a certain gesture, a political gesture,” Vondráček noted.
The tense atmosphere came to a head in the House of Representatives during the approval of the pension amendment after the government camp enforced the limitation of speaking time even for speakers with priority rights. ANO chairman Andrej Babiš refused to respect the decision twice and refused to leave the podium. Opposition representatives blame Pekarová Adamová for refusing to call the wider leadership of the House to resolve the situation, and allegedly did so at the instigation of Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS). otherwise than by such radical steps as occupying the lectern against me,” said Pekarová Adamová today. She accused the opposition ANO and SPD of not fighting with the coalition, but with each other. According to her, Babiš refused to leave the lectern due to the fact that he had not been able to defeat SPD leader Tomio Okamura in the length of his speech. Pekarová Adamová also emphasized that opposition obstruction in the House must not exceed such a degree that it becomes destruction.
Among the members of the House leadership, Okamura was last faced with a motion to dismiss Okamura, and that was in the last election period, when he was vice-chairman. The chairman of the SPD then faced criticism because of his statements about the concentration camp for Roma in the years near Písek. The Lower Chamber did not remove him from the position of Deputy Speaker of the House in March 2018, when it did not approve the draft program of the relevant extraordinary meeting. It was not supported by SPD, KSČM and the overwhelming majority of ANO representatives at the time.
