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The current president is Miloš Zeman, in office since 8 March 2013. Until 2012, the president was elected by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, for a term lasting five years. Since 2013 the president is elected by popular vote. The only living former president of the Czech Republic is Václav Klaus.
Because many powers can only be exercised with the signatures of both the President and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, responsibility over some political issues is effectively shared between the two offices. The current president, Miloš Zeman, assumed the office on 8 March 2013.
The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic, in which the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. Since 1993, the two largest parties were the center-left Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) and right-wing Civic Democratic Party (ODS).
It emerged from over 40 years of Communist rule in 1990, and was the first former Eastern Bloc state to acquire the status of a developed economy. It joined the European Union in 2004. Communist rule had lasted since 1948, when the restored pre-war democratic system was overthrown in a Soviet-backed coup.
Between 1929 and 1953, it was led by Klement Gottwald . After its election victory in 1946, it seized power in the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d’état and established a one-party state allied with the Soviet Union.
Edvard Beneš | |
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Beneš , c. 1942 | |
2nd & 4th President of Czechoslovakia | |
In office 2 April 1945 – 7 June 1948 | |
Prime Minister | Zdeněk Fierlinger Klement Gottwald |
Today, the Czech Republic is a pluralist multi-party parliamentary democracy, with the President as head of state and Prime Minister as head of government . The Parliament consists of the Chamber of Deputies (200 members) and the Senate (81 members).
Following the coup d’état of February 1948, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power with the support of the Soviet Union, the country was declared a socialist republic after the Ninth-of-May Constitution became effective.
Czechoslovakia , Czech and Slovak Československo, former country in central Europe encompassing the historical lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia. Czechoslovakia was formed from several provinces of the collapsing empire of Austria-Hungary in 1918 , at the end of World War I.
Economy of the Czech Republic
Statistics | |
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GDP | $242 billion (nominal, 2020 est.) $431 billion (PPP, 2020 est.) |
GDP rank | 45th (nominal, 2019) 46th (PPP, 2020) |
GDP growth | 3.2% (2018) 2.3% (2019) −6.5% (2020e) 5.1% (2021e) |
GDP per capita | $22,627 (nominal, 2020 est.) $40,293 (PPP, 2020 est.) |
The Czechoslovak legions occupy an almost legendary place in Czech history. They comprise the armed forces that fought during and after World War I on the allied side in pursuit of an independent Czechoslovakia .
Tensions began to mount between Benes and Stalin over two issues. Stalin demanded that the province of Ruthenia be ceded to the USSR. Also, in the collapse of the quisling state body, the local “people’s committees” that replaced them became dominated by Communists .
After the 1948 coup, Communist ideology permeated citizens’ lives and dominated all aspects of society. Czechoslovakia’s political decisions were dictated by the Soviet Union, and the country continued to rely on the Soviet Union even during the 1980s.
Modern Prague contains few obvious reminders of the 41 years Czechia spent as a communist state. In the fairytale streets of Prague’s Old Town , it’s easy to forget the city once stood on the western frontier of socialism.