Czech Republic Politics

The Czech constitution has at its heart the separation of the pillars of power. These pillars are represented by legislative power (held by the two-chamber Parliament), executive power (held by the Cabinet and the president) and judiciary power (held by independent courts).

The Czech Republic is a pluralist multi-party parliamentary representative democracy, where the Prime Minister is the head of government. The Parliament is bicameral, with the Chamber of Deputies (Czech: Poslanecká snemovna) being the lower chamber (200 members) and the Senate being the upper chamber (81 members).
Direct elections are held for each chamber with partial proportional representation determining membership of the lower chamber (only parties with 5% minimum of the popular vote are eligible to take up parliamentary seats). Czech citizens over the age of 21 are eligible to stand for the lower chamber, but only those over the age of 40 are permitted to stand for the upper chamber.

The Civic Democratic party and the Czech Social Democratic Party currently dominate the political landscape. Smaller parties represented in both chambers are the Communist Party, the Christian Democratic Union and the Green Party.

The President is not elected directly but indirectly through a joint conference of both parliamentary chambers. The President is elected for a 5 year term and can only stand for a maximum of two terms.

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