Jan Fischer gets a boost

The immediate winners in the Senate elections were the Social Democrats (ČSSD) and, to a lesser extent, the Left in general, but the long-term winner could be Jan Fischer. Voters dealt a crippling blow to the Right (meaning mainly ODS) for refusing to recant its thieving ways and also punished the Communists for getting their hopes up too high. ČSSD won all but one of its face-offs with the Communists but lost all its seven contests against independent or non-parliamentary candidates. If Miloš Zeman and Fischer make it into the second round of the presidential elections, as polls predict, a similar scenario could play itself out. Of course Zeman isn't technically the candidate of ČSSD, just as he isn't officially the candidate of the criminal elite, but those are his main bases of support. And if Fischer can sell himself as the independent candidate, the outcome of the Senate elections could speak in his favor.