(Repeats story published late on Tuesday)
* New party sees controversy over corruption, tax, health
* Says has will to forge government deal
* If talks fail, may support right-wing minority
By Robert Mueller and Jan Lopatka
PRAGUE, June 1 (Reuters) - A maverick new Czech party that
is key to forming a centre-right cabinet said on Tuesday it saw
conflicts ahead with its likely coalition partners but had a
strong will to pull together a government deal.
The centrist Public Affairs, with no track record in
national politics, is negotiating a pact with the right-wing
Civic Democrats and conservative TOP09 parties after the three
won a surprisingly clear majority in last weekend's election.
The outcome boosted the crown currency on hopes that the
central European country would launch fiscal, pension and health
reforms to narrow the budget deficit and strengthen its solid,
though eroding, fiscal position.
The party's head of policy and a member of its three-person
coalition negotiating team, Kristyna Koci, said she saw possible
clashes on several issues including taxes, health care and the
fight against corruption -- the party's key vote-winner.
"There will be more clashes between TOP09 and us (on taxes
and) health care," Koci told Reuters in an interview, adding her
party demanded an immediate cancellation of prescription drug
charges, which had been introduced by the right.
The two parties have already clashed, after TOP09 officials
called Public Affairs opaque.
But Koci said her party which won 10.9 percent vote in its
first parliamentary election, was ready to join the government
provided it could fulfil as much as possible of its programme.
"It must not be only a coalition against debt but also
against corruption, then we will be able to go into it."
Among the party's proposals to tackle chronic graft in Czech
public procurement is an undercover fraud squad that would have
the right to entrap officials by offering them bribes. Other
parties say that would be unconstitutional.
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Koci said that 60 percent of the party's registered
supporters were in favour of a right-wing coalition.
She is a 25-year-old graduate from a conservative political
science school and may be the youngest politician involved in
government talks since the student-driven Velvet Revolution that
ended decades of Communist rule in 1989.
If the coalition talks collapsed, she said, the party could
back a minority cabinet of the Civic Democrats and TOP09, which
would have 94 seats in the 200-seat lower house.
"We would support a (minority) government on the basis of a
detailled agreement, it would be conditional support based on
concrete policies," she said.
The parties were due to hold their first three-way talks on
forming a government on Wednesday.
Civic Democrat chief Petr Necas, the most likely next prime
minister, said on Tuesday a government could be formed within a
month or two and there was no talk of a minority cabinet.
Asked about Public Affairs' alternative of not joining the
cabinet, he said he understood other parties' took a tactical
approach to the talks.
(editing by Paul Taylor)
