Czech Communists attempt to cast off old image

Katerina Konecna is still a university student, but she is already well-positioned to win a seat in the Czech parliament in elections June 15.

Both idealistic and pragmatic, the 21-year-old looks set to crash through glass ceilings in a country where men traditionally hold political power. If she wins her race, she will become the youngest member of parliament in Czech history.

"Politics isn't just about experience," Ms. Konecna says.

"Parliament should be a reflection of society, with young and old, men and women. I think I can do a lot for ordinary citizens in this country."

But she has one huge political handicap – she is a devoted communist, and in the Czech Republic that means political isolation, ostracism, and exile to the extreme left.

Just 12 years ago, this country threw off the shackles of one of the most totalitarian communist regimes of the Soviet bloc. Vaclav Havel, a former political prisoner and anti-communist dissident, became president, a post he hasn't abandoned since. Still traumatized by a state system that routinely punished its citizens for their family background or beliefs, most Czechs react to anyone who admits to being a communist with disdain and even anger.

"Certainly, we need more women in parliament," says Petr Pavlik, acting chair of the Charles University Center for Gender Studies. "We are behind most other European countries, and I don't think this 21-year-old woman is too young, but it is a shame she is a communist."

Konecna is not a formal member of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), the only unreformed communist party in Central Europe, but she does stand by its program of limiting privatization and increasing social benefits, and she openly calls herself a communist.

The KSCM is the only party that actively favors women candidates – offering female contenders for various posts around the country. It has placed Konecna third on its candidate list for the North Moravian region, which means she is virtually guaranteed a spot in the lower house of parliament, where the average age is 49. Just 15 percent of deputies are women and that is expected to drop to 6 or 7 percent after this year's elections.

On the other hand, communist seats, now 24, are expected to increase. Despite its overall disfavor, the KSCM still has a stable base of support in poorer regions and among the elderly. Recent polls give the Communists 18 percent of public support, up from 11 percent in the last elections.

That could put the party in an advantageous position, given that no party has a majority. The next government, like the present one, is likely to be a shaky centrist coalition, but the KSCM has been repeatedly excluded from coalition talks and its closest kin, the ruling Social Democrats, passed a resolution forbidding negotiation with the Communists.

"No one will touch them," says Milan Znoj, director of the Institute of Political Science in Prague. "The Communists are not considered a democratic party."

Konecna's prominence in the KSCM is widely perceived as a shallow attempt by the party to regain credibility.

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