Social Democracy (Czech Republic)

The Social Democratic Czechoslavonic party in Austria (Czech: Sociálně Demokratická strana Českoslovanská v Rakousku) was a political group founded on 7 April 1878 in Austria-Hungary as a regional wing of the Social Democratic Party of Austria. Founded in Břevnov atop earlier social democratic initiatives, such as the Ouls, it represented much of the Kingdom of Bohemia in the Austrian parliament, and its significant role in the political life of the empire was one of the factors that led to the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I, the party became one of the leading parties of the first Czechoslovak Republic. Its members were split over whether to join the Comintern, which in 1921 resulted in the fracturing of the party, with a large part of its membership then forming the new Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

During the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, the party was officially abolished, but its members organized resistance movements contrary to the laws of the German-controlled Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, both at home and abroad. After the re-establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1945, the party returned to its pre-war structure and became a member of the National Front which formed a new governing coalition. In 1948, after the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia gained a parliamentary majority, the Czech Social Democratic Party was incorporated into the Communist Party. At the time of the Prague Spring, a reformist movement in 1968, there were talks about allowing the recreation of a social democratic party, but Soviet intervention put an end to such ideas. It was only after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 that the party was recreated. Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, which came into effect on 1 January 1993, the ČSSD has been one of the major political parties of the Czech Republic, and until October 2017 was always one of the two parties with the largest number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

At the 1998 Czech legislative election, the party won the largest number of seats but failed to form a coalition government, so formed a minority government under its leader Miloš Zeman. With only 74 seats out of 200, the government had confidence and supply from the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), under the so-called Opposition Agreement. At the 2002 Czech legislative election, the party gained 70 of the 200 seats in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic. Its leader Vladimír Špidla became prime minister, heading a coalition with two small centre-right parties, the Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party (KDU–ČSL) and the Freedom Union – Democratic Union (US-DEU) until he was forced to resign in 2004 after the ČSSD lost in the 2004 European Parliament election in the Czech Republic.

The next leader was Stanislav Gross, serving as leader from 26 June 2004 to 26 April 2005 and as prime minister from 4 August 2004 to 25 April 2005. He resigned after a scandal when he was unable to explain the source of money used to buy his house. The successor of Gross as prime minister was Jiří Paroubek, while Bohuslav Sobotka became acting party leader from 26 April 2005 to 13 May 2006. Paroubek was then elected as the new party leader in the run-up to the 2006 Czech legislative election, at which the party won 32.3% of the vote and 74 out of 200 seats. The election at first caused a stalemate, since the centre-right parties plus the Green Party and the centre-left parties each had exactly 100 seats. The stalemate was broken when two ČSSD deputies, Miloš Melčák and Michal Pohanka, abstained during a vote of confidence, allowing a coalition of the Civic Democrats (ODS), the KDU-ČSL, and the Green Party to form a government, while the ČSSD went into opposition.

At the 2010 Czech legislative election, the ČSSD gained 22.08% of the vote but remained the largest party, with 56 seats. Failing to form a governing coalition, it remained in opposition to a government coalition of the ODS, conservative TOP 09 and conservative-liberal Public Affairs parties. Paroubek resigned as leader on 7 June and was succeeded by Sobotka.^[11] It remained the largest party after the 2013 Czech legislative election, and in December of the same year formed a governing coalition with the populist ANO 2011 and the centrist Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party.^[12] The leader of ČSSD, Bohuslav Sobotka, became the new Prime Minister of the Czech Republic.^[13]

The party suffered heavy losses in the 2017 Czech legislative election and was reduced to 15 seats, the worst result in its history. ČSSD suffered another defeat in the Prague Municipal, local and Senate elections in 2018. ČSSD lost 12 senators (only one managed to win re-election), all Prague deputies and more than half of their local councillors. In 2019 ČSSD lost all their representatives in the European Parliament. Some political commentators have interpreted the string of poor results as a sign of ČSSD losing their position in national politics.^[14] ČSSD suffered another defeat in 2020 Regional Elections and Senate elections, when they lost 10 senators (none re-elected) and 97 regional deputies.^[15][16] From 2018 to 2021, ČSSD had Jan Hamáček as First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Jana Maláčová as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Lubomír Zaorálek as Minister of Culture, and Miroslav Toman as Minister of Agriculture. After the poor performance of the ČSSD in the 2021 Czech legislative election, in which the party failed to meet the 5% voting threshold, Hamáček resigned as leader of the party.^[10]

Names

Czech lands as part of Austria-Hungary:

• 1878–1893: Czechoslavonic Social Democratic Party in Austria (Sociálně-demokratická strana českoslovanská v Rakousku), then part of the Social Democratic Party of Austria
• 1893–1918: Czechoslavonic Social Democratic Workers' Party (Českoslovanská sociálně demokratická stranu dělnická), an independent party

Czechoslovakia:

• 1918–1938: Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers' Party (Československá sociálně demokratická strana dělnická), and was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1923 and 1938;^[17] after the split-up of Austria-Hungary, the portion of the party that ended up within the new Republic of Austria split from the main party to form the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers Party in the Republic of Austria
• 1938–1941: National Labour Party (Národní strana práce), which was a merger of the party with the left wing of the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party to unite the left in opposition to the ruling Party of National Unity
• 1945–1948: Czechoslovak Social Democracy (Československá sociální demokracie)
• 1948–1989: merged with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia but concurrently existed as an exile party with its headquarters in London
• 1990–1993: Czechoslovak Social Democracy (Československá sociální demokracie)

Czech Republic:

• 1993–2023: Czech Social Democratic Party (Česká strana sociálně demokratická), keeping the previous abbreviation ČSSD
• Since June 2023: Social Democracy (Sociální demokracie), adopting the abbreviation SOCDEM.

Logos

• 
  Party logo, 1945–1948 1990–1992
  (1948–1990 in-exile)
• 
  Party logo, 1992–1998
• 
  Party logo, 1998–2011
• 
  Party logo, 2011–2021
• 
  Party logo, 2021–2023
• 
  Party logo, 2023–

• 
  Electoral logo for 2017 elections
• 
  Electoral logo for 2020 elections
• 
  Electoral logo for 2021 elections

Policy positions

In economic matters, the ČSSD party platform is typical of Western European social democratic parties. It supports a mixed economy, a strong welfare state, and progressive taxation. In foreign policy, it supports European integration, including joining the Eurozone, and is critical of the foreign policy of the United States, especially when in opposition, though it does not oppose membership of the Czech Republic in NATO.

Membership

After 1989^[18]

1990	12,954
1991	12,468
1992	11,797
1993	11,031
1994	10,482
1995	11,757
1996	13,043
1997	14,121
1998	17,343
1999	18,762
2000	17,079
2001	16,300
2002	17,026
2003	17,913
2004	16,658
2005	16,750
2006	17,650
2007	18,354
2008	20,684
2009	24,497
2010	24,486
2011	24,000
2012	23,802
2013	22,881
2014	23,202
2015	21,501
2016	20,349
2017	19,477
2018	17,208
2019	13,845
2020	13,139
2021	11,531
2022	9,403
2023	7,539

Before 1948^[19][20]

1913	169,279
1932	194,857
1935	210,898

Further references

^{[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]}

Cisleithanian elections

Imperial Council elections

Date	Leader	Votes		Seats			Position
		No.	%	No.	±	Size
1907	Antonín Němec	389,960	8.5	22 / 516	22	6th	Opposition
1911	Antonín Němec	357,234	7.9	25 / 516	3	4th	Opposition

Czechoslovakia wide elections

Legislative elections

Date	Leader	Votes		Seats			Position
		No.	%	No.	±	Size
1920	Antonín Němec	1,590,520	25.7	74 / 300	74	1st	Coalition
1925	Antonín Hampl	632,403	8.9	25 / 300	45	4th	Coalition
1929	Antonín Hampl	963,462	13	39 / 300	10	2nd	Opposition
1935	Antonín Hampl	1,032,773	12.6	38 / 300	1	3rd	Coalition
1946	Zdeněk Fierlinger	855,771	12.1	37 / 300	1	5th	Coalition
1948	as part of National Front			23 / 300	14	3rd	Bloc
1954	Illegal. Merged into Communist Party. De jure in-exile.
1960
1964
1971
1976
1981
1986
1990	Jiří Horák	342,455	3.2	0 / 150	0	9th	No seats
1992	Valtr Komárek Alexander Dubček	648,125	6.8	10 / 150	10	4th	Opposition

Devolved assembly elections

Czech assembly elections

Date	Leader	Votes		Seats			Position
		No.	%	No.	±	Size
1990	Jiří Horák	296,165	4.11	0 / 200	0	6th	No seats
1992	Jiří Horák	422,736	6.53	16 / 200	16	3rd	Opposition

Slovak assembly elections

Date	Leader	Votes		Seats			Position
		No.	%	No.	±	Size
1928	Ivan Dérer	96,901	7.33	4 / 54	4	4th	–
1935	Ivan Dérer	–	11.3	4 / 54	0	5th	–

Czech Republic wide elections

Legislative elections

Date	Leader	Votes		Seats			Position
		No.	%	No.	±	Size
1996	Miloš Zeman	1,602,250	26.4	61 / 200	45	2nd	External support
1998	Miloš Zeman	1,928,660	32.3	74 / 200	13	1st	Minority
2002	Vladimír Špidla	1,440,279	30.2	70 / 200	4	1st	Coalition
2006	Jiří Paroubek	1,728,827	32.3	74 / 200	4	2nd	Opposition (2006–2009)
							Coalition (2009–2010)
2010	Jiří Paroubek	1,155,267	22.1	56 / 200	18	1st	Opposition
2013	Bohuslav Sobotka	1,016,829	20.5	50 / 200	6	1st	Coalition
2017	Lubomír Zaorálek	368,347	7.3	15 / 200	35	6th	Opposition (2017–2018)
							Coalition (2018–2021)
2021	Jan Hamáček	250,397	4.7	0 / 200	15	6th	No seats

Senate elections

Notes

• In 1996, the whole Senate elected (81 seats), while in next elections only one third of seats is to be contested.

Presidential elections

European Parliament elections

Election	Votes	%	Seats obtained	Place
2004	204,903	8.78	2 / 25	5th
2009	528,132	22.39	7 / 22	2nd
2014	214,800	14.17	4 / 21	3rd
2019	93,664	3.95	0 / 21	8th

Regional elections

Local elections

Prague municipal elections

Year	Leader	Vote	%	Seats	+/−	Place	Position
1990		484,484	5.6	5 / 76		4th	Opposition
1994	Jiří Paroubek	2,435,279	8.6	5 / 55		4th	Opposition
1998	Jiří Paroubek	363,917	17.5	10 / 55	5	3rd	Coalition
2002	Jiří Paroubek	656,936	14.7	12 / 70	2	3rd	Coalition
2006	Petra Buzková	4,197,631	15.9	12 / 70		2nd	Opposition
2010	Jiří Dienstbier Jr.	615,209	17.9	19 / 65	7	2nd	Coalition
2014	Miloslav Ludvík	2,160,963	10.4	8 / 65	11	5th	Coalition
2018	Jakub Landovský	727,826	2.9	0 / 65	8	8th	No seats

Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party in Austria

• Josef Boleslav Pecka (1878–1893)
• Josef Hybeš (1887–1893)

Czechoslavonic Social Democratic Workers' Party

• Josef Steiner (1893–1904)
• Antonín Němec (1904–1915)
• Bohumír Šmeral (1916–1917)

Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers' Party

• Antonín Němec (1917–1925)
• Antonín Hampl (1925–1938)

Czechoslovak Social Democracy

• Zdeněk Fierlinger (1945–1947)
• Bohumil Laušman (1947–1948)

Czechoslovak Social Democracy in-exile

• Blažej Vilím (1948)
• Václav Majer (1948–1972)
• Vilém Bernard (1972–1989)
• Karel Hrubý

Czechoslovak Social Democracy

• Slavomír Klaban (1989–1990)
• Jiří Horák (1990–1993)

Czech Social Democratic Party

• Miloš Zeman (28 February 1993 – April 2001)
• Vladimír Špidla (April 2001 – 26 July 2004)
• Stanislav Gross (26 July 2004 – 26 April 2005)
  • Bohuslav Sobotka (2005–2006; acting)
• Jiří Paroubek (2006–2010)
• Bohuslav Sobotka (2011–2017)
  • Milan Chovanec (2017-2018; acting)
• Jan Hamáček (2018–2021)
  • Roman Onderka (2021; acting)
• Michal Šmarda (since 2021)

• Bohumil Laušman
• Elections in the Czech Republic
• Politics of the Czech Republic

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Czech Social Democratic Party.

• Official website (in Czech)
  • Religious wing website
  • Women wing website
• Party basic data in English