Brussels, 17/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - The Czech prime minister, Petr Necas, was due to hand his resignation to the Czech president, Milos Zeman, on Monday after admitting responsibility in a corruption and abuse of power scandal involving his chief of staff, who is described in some of the media as his mistress and who is under arrest.
On Thursday, searches were made in the prime minister's offices and his chief of staff was arrested in a large-scale police operation, accused of using military intelligence services for her own personal interests to have the prime minister's recently divorced wife illegally shadowed. Necas recently resigned as head of his party, ODS, and is now calling for the current tripartite Centre-Right coalition to remain in power until the next general elections, scheduled for May 2014, with a new prime minister, to be fielded by his party. Milos Zeman, the left-wing president elected in March, will have to decide on the matter because he has the power to appoint a new prime minister or to decide to convene early elections. The S&D group at the European Parliament issued a press release on Monday calling for early elections rather than going along with a new government that is weak from the start, explains Hannes Swoboda of Austria. (SP/transl.fl)