Czech far-right wingers to found new party if DS outlawed - Vandas

"A new political party will definitely be established," Tomas Vandas asserts in the daily Lidove noviny (LN) today, in reaction to the Czech government’s proposal that his ultra-right Workers’ Party (DS) be outlawed by court over its extremist positions.

"We have a plan how to react. No one can expect us to return to our homes and cease dealing with politics. Not even a political simpleton like Interior Minister Ivan Langer can expect this. It is no problem to establish a new political party," Vandas points out.

Vandas says the DS is by no means surprised at the government’s initiative.

"We expected this verdict by the government. It reflects the cowardice of the government officials who fear to honestly face us in elections," Vandas told the paper.

The DS, an extra-parliamentary grouping, has not gained massive support in elections so far, which Vandas blames on "the conditions in which we are working."

In view of these conditions, nonetheless, the DS’s latest election "result was not that bad. In the 2004 regional elections we were supported by about 3,000 people, while in the recent polls the number reached 26,000," Vandas said.

"Our popularity has been steadily growing. In the [mid-2009] EP elections we might gain 2 to 3 percent of the vote," he added.

The government proposed the outlawing of Vandas’s DS, an extra-parliamentary grouping, on Monday at Langer’s request.

Previously, government officials sharply condemned the DS’s excesses such as its November 17 march against the Romany community in Litvinov, north Bohemia, which the local police prevented using force.

Langer (Civic Democrats, ODS) on Monday pointed to the DS’s recent statement in which the party declared zero tolerance towards and a crusade against the post-1989 political system.

Vandas told LN that the DS’s popularity is growing because "we openly and loudly speak about corruption and crime in the Czech Republic and about political elites being tied with the mafia. People are annoyed at ordinary citizens being pushed into the corner without a chance to find support anywhere."

He said the DS is planning another meeting in Litvinov on December 13, and is pondering staging an anti-government demonstration in Prague.