After more than a year of being run by a provisional team of technocrats, the Czech Republic has a new centre-right coalition government, who won a vote of confidence earlier this month. It seems the surprising turn of events continues, following the May election when everyone expected the Social Democrats (ČSSD) to win by a significant margin. What actually happened was a pyrrhic victory: 18 seats lost, a 2% margin win and no chance of cobbling together a government with other parties. The ČSSD leader, Jiří Paroubek, who helped bring down the country’s centre-right government in March 2009, promptly resigned.

So now contrary to expectation, the Czech Republic is on course for four years of a center-right government with a triumvirate of the Civic Democrats (ODS) and two newcomers: TOP 09 and Věci veřejné (VV). This all means serious budget cuts and a significantly smaller government. It may also mean playing a role in the US missile defense despite the threats – some vocal, some subtler – by Russia to retaliate. The ČSSD, who fought tooth and nail against the original Bush administration project, is pretty much toothless now and can only watch and seethe from the sidelines.