(Repeats story published early today)
* Opposition has chance to topple Czech government
* Cabinet could stay on for months even if govt defeated
* Early election not ruled out
By Jan Lopatka
PRAGUE, March 24 (Reuters) - Czech opposition Social
Democrats have their best chance yet on Tuesday of toppling
Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's minority centre-right
administration, midway through the country's EU presidency.
Ousting the three-party cabinet, made more likely by
defections from Topolanek's camp, would jeopardise policymaking
in a severe economic downturn and threaten efforts to ratify the
EU's Lisbon treaty.
Even if forced out by an opposition victory, Topolanek's
team, long hampered by its weak standing in parliament, would
stay in power until politicians hammer out what to do next,
which could take weeks or months.
Topolanek is seeking support from two deputies who have
defected from his junior coalition partner, the Green Party, to
squeeze through the vote, but the outcome is in the balance.
He said he would seek another mandate from President Vaclav
Klaus if the cabinet falls, but did not rule out early polls.
"In case the government does not win ... tomorrow, and if it
is not possible to form a new cabinet without support from the
Communists, then the Civic Democrats clearly support the fastest
possible way toward an early election, as soon as the summer of
this year," Topolanek told reporters on Monday.
Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek said he wanted the
cabinet to stay on, even after resignation, until June to avoid
changing the team during the country's EU term.
He said a government of non-partisan experts should then
take over and lead the country toward and early election in the
autumn or next spring. Regular polls are due in mid-2010.
GOVERNMENTS UNDER STRAIN
The Czech vote comes just days after Hungarian Prime
Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said he would step down and after
governments fell in Iceland and Latvia under the strain of the
economic crisis.
While the Czech political turmoil is not as directly related
to the crisis, the economy has suffered from a slump in exports,
and figures out on Monday showed industrial output fell by 23.3
percent in January. But banks have held strong, the public has
been quiet and Czechs are not heavily exposed to foreign debt.
The cabinet has suffered instead from factional infighting
and has been wobbly ever since it was appointed in January 2007,
with just 100 seats in the 200-seat lower house, now reduced to
96 -- some of them unsure -- compared with 97 opposition seats.
The opposition needs 101 votes to overthrow the cabinet.
Two independents, formerly from a eurosceptic wing of
Topolanek's party, have been increasingly hostile to the
cabinet, in part due to plans to ratify the Lisbon treaty, meant
to make the EU more flexible after its eastern expansion.
The upper house, or Senate, where many Civic Democrat
Senators oppose the pact, may feel less obliged hold Topolanek's
line defending ratification if the government is ousted.
