Jiří Paroubek

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Jiří Paroubek
6th Prime Minister of the Czech Republic
In office 25 April 2005 – 16 August 2006
Preceded by	Stanislav Gross
Succeeded by	Mirek Topolánek
Member of the Chamber of Deputies for Ústí nad Labem
Incumbent
Assumed office  3 June 2006
Chairman of Czech Social Democratic Party
Incumbent
Assumed office  2006
Preceded by	Bohuslav Sobotka (acting)
Minister for Regional Development of the Czech Republic
In office 2004 – 2005
Preceded by	Pavel Němec
Succeeded by	Radko Martínek
Born	21 August 1952 (1952-08-21) (age 57) Olomouc, Czechoslovakia
Political party	Czech Social Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Zuzana Paroubková (1979-2007), Petra Paroubková (since 2007)
Children	son Jiří
Residence	Prague
Website	http://www.paroubek.cz

Paroubek in 2009

Jiří Paroubek (pronounced [ˈjɪr̝iː ˈparoʊ̯bɛk] (help·info)) (born 21 August 1952 in Olomouc) is a Czech politician who is currently the Chairman of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD). From 25 April 2005 to 16 August 2006, he was Prime Minister of the Czech Republic.

Early career

Paroubek entered politics in 1970 at the age of 18, right after beginning his studies at the University of Economics, Prague. That year he joined the Czechoslovak Socialistic Party, a member party of the Czechoslovak National Front. He reached the lower levels of the party leadership before leaving the party in 1986.

As such he attracted the attention of the state secret police (StB) and was contacted by them three times. He was assigned the cover name Roko (after Paroubek's pet parakeet), but he never worked for the secret police and after 1982 was left alone, since he "did not have enough potential and contacts".

He served his military service (one year) as an army food services supervisor in the southern Bohemian city of Prachatice. After graduating in 1976, Paroubek worked as a manager for several state companies including the restaurants holding (Restaurace a jídelny).

Following the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 Paroubek joined the newly reborn Czech Social Democratic Party. Then chairman Jiří Horák awarded him an executive post. In 1993 he stood for chairmanship of the party but was defeated by Miloš Zeman. In 2000, he finished fourth in elections to the Senate of the Czech Republic in the Prague 8 district, finishing behind the Communist candidate.^[1] Paroubek served in high position in the municipal government of Prague for over 14 years, and specialised in city finance.

Prime Ministership

In August 2004 Paroubek was appointed as Minister of Regional Development in Stanislav Gross's government. After a government crisis in early 2005 sparked by Gross's personal finance affairs, Paroubek succeeded him to become the 6th Prime Minister of the Czech Republic on 25 April 2005.

On 13 May 2005, Paroubek's government passed a vote of confidence in the parliament. All 101 coalition-party members supported the government, while the 98 opposition members and one independent voted against. Paroubek's government, which was little changed from Gross's, led the country to the parliamentary elections of June 2006.

On 30 July 2005, the CzechTek free techno party was broken up by around 1,000 riot police using tear gas and water cannons, claiming the revellers had damaged private property. This action left one participant to the rave dead, around 80 people and several police officers injured, causing public protests in front outside the Czech interior ministry. The Prime Minister had spoken in favour of the action beforehand and later defended it, stating that the participants were "not dancing children but dangerous people", but was criticised for the raid by President Václav Klaus. Opposition parties and the media took this action as an opportunity to condemn the government, with some drawing comparisons between the actions of Paroubek's government and crackdowns against students by the communist government in 1989.^[2]

In autumn 2005, Paroubek nominated David Rath, then president of Czech Medical Chamber, for the position of Health Minister. Václav Klaus refused to appoint Rath to the position due to a perceived conflict of interest; a hot legal argument followed as to whether Rath could resign from the Chamber only after he was appointed Minister until Rath admitted defeat and resigned first.^{[citation needed]} During the argument the President accused Paroubek of lying to him about how he solved his own formal conflict of interests on being appointed a minister in Gross's government. Paroubek resigned from several functions after the appointment, while Klaus claimed that he would never had appointed him had he known he still had them.^{[citation needed]}

Role in the Czech legislative election, 2006

Paroubek was selected the election leader for 2006 and in the mid-May ČSSD congress was voted the new chairman by an uncontested 90%. The election campaign was highly contrastive, especially because of strong animosities between the ČSSD, ODS and their respective leaders.

The so called "Kubice's Report" had an important impact on the elections and especially the post-elections talks^{[citation needed]}. Jan Kubice was a high police officer for investigation of organized crimes. His report accused Paroubek of contacts within the criminal underground and of pedophilia.^{[citation needed]} The report was initially classified and was presented to the proper commission of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament, but was made public four days before polls. No information from this report has been proved^{[citation needed]}. The publication of the report caused Paroubek to make a strong statement immediately after the elections. He stated "ODS did not abhor breaking many laws and made it on purpose four days before the elections to avoid establishing of this evident and repeated breaking of legal order. (...) I feel a duty to announce that democracy in this country incurred a hard intervention comparable maybe only with February 1948. Only with that difference that a blue totality looms."^[3] Paroubek later publicly apologized for these comments^{[citation needed]}.

Although ČSSD's results in the pre-election polls were at just 10 pct when Stanislav Gross resigned as Czech Prime Minister,^[4] the ČSSD received 32.3 pct in the elections to finish runner-up to the ODS. Upon the result, Paroubek said: "We have not lost, our party was the second that won."^{[verification needed]}

Paroubek was criticized for unanimously speaking for all his party's members in parliament, stating that they would not vote in the secret casting of votes of confidence and for denying the tri-coalition programme prior to its release. He said that they would not support the programme, even though no programme proclamation had been made at the time.

paroubek has stated on numerous occasions that he was confident he would be given second chance of forming a government, which led many people to suppose he intended to obtain that outcome from the very start^{[citation needed]}.

On 9 September Paroubek released a document claiming it showed that the ODS planned to discredit him^{[citation needed]}. Paroubek refused to name the source of this paper.

References

External links

• http://www.paroubek.cz - personal website
• Pre-election profile at Radio Prague website, together with Mirek Topolánek
• Controversial post-election speech (video)

v • d • e Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus | Josef Tošovský | Miloš Zeman | Vladimír Špidla | Stanislav Gross | Jiří Paroubek | Mirek Topolánek | Jan Fischer

v • d • e Ministers of Regional Development of the Czech Republic Dyba · Schneider · Kvapil · Černý · Císař · Lachnit · Němec · Paroubek · Martínek · Gandalovič · Čunek · Svoboda · Vondruška