UPDATE 1-Czech opposition head to seek govt, early election

                                
 (Adds Klaus comments, background)
                                
 By Jan Korselt
                                
 PRAGUE, March 27 (Reuters) - Opposition leader Jiri Paroubek
said on Friday he will start talks on supporting a new
government to lead the Czech Republic to an early election
following the fall of the centre-right cabinet.
                                
Paroubek said he would talk with all parties but did not say
who he would prefer to lead the government.
                                
 President Vaclav Klaus has said a new cabinet should be put
in place swiftly after Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek lost a
no-confidence vote on Tuesday. But a deal will be hard to reach
and analysts say a long stalemate is likely.
                                
 The old government will stay until a new one is formed and
some politicians have said said it may last until the end of the
Czechs' term as European Union president.
                                
 The vote undermined the EU presidency and cast a shadow over
efforts to enact legislation to ease the impact of the global
financial crisis.
                                
 Paroubek has said his Social Democrats party would not take
part in the government and it would prefer a cabinet of experts.
                                
 "I am going to negotiate for a Czech government that will
have the confidence of the lower house and which will also bring
the country to early elections," Paroubek told reporters after
meeting Klaus.
                                
 "The best case scenario (for elections) would be in
October," he said.
                                
 Regular elections are due in mid-2010.
                                
 The Social Democrats have long led opinion polls but the
Civic Democrats have been narrowing the gap since the country
took over the EU presidency. They now trail by 4.5-7.8
percentage points, according to opinion polls before the vote.
                                
 The political crisis weakened the crown currency but the
market soon recovered, with the crown supported by its low
exposure to foreign debt and a solid banking sector.
                                
 
                                
 TWO BIG PARTIES NEED TO AGREE
                                
 Klaus set the condition that any new prime minister must
first prove that he has majority support.
                                
 That would most likely require agreement between the Social
Democrats and Topolanek's right-wing Civic Democrats. Other
options would require taking in the Communists, who have been
largely isolated since they lost power in 1989.
                                
 Topolanek himself has also proposed early elections as
quickly as possible but insists that he must lead any new
cabinet, which the Social Democrats have repeatedly rejected.
                                
 Klaus's spokesman said after he met Paroubek and the head of
a junior coalition party, the centrist Christian Democrats, that
they had discussed a possible deal on a partial reconstruction
of the outgoing cabinet and an early election.
                                
 "The president is ready to contribute to the creation of 
this agreement," the spokesman said.
                                
 He did not specify whether "partial reconstruction" meant
Topolanek could stay.
                                
 Klaus has had an icy relationship with Topolanek, although 
both come from the same party, and Klaus loyalists supplied the
opposition with the votes that toppled the cabinet.
                                
 Klaus is much more of a eurosceptic than Topolanek and has
criticised the cabinet for its pro-European policy, including
the intention to ratify the EU's Lisbon reform treaty.
                                
 (Writing by Michael Winfrey and Jan Lopatka; Editing by
Angus MacSwan)