No Government Is Good Government?
After checking (czeching?) boxes in a June election, the Czech Republic still has no government. When the votes were counted, no coalition could assemble more than 100 members, and parliament has 200 seats. Reason contributor Marian L. Tupy isn't worried:
Five months [after the election], the only certainty is that political stalemate is likely to continue until an early election can be agreed. Notably, the sky has not fallen. The country's institutional framework remains sturdy, the economy continues to grow apace, and some Czechs wonder if they even need government at all.
It's true that the sky hasn't fallen. But unemployment sure has:
All the while, the Czech economy continues to perform nicely. Unemployment fell from 8.8 percent in August 2005 to 7.8 percent in August 2006, and economic growth is projected to reach 6 percent this year. The continued growth of the economy suggests that the investors perceive the Czech Republic as a safe place for their savings. That is a vote of confidence in the strength of the Czech institutional framework and the progress that the country has made since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tupy concludes: "It appears that the Czechs can afford to be without government a little while longer."
Indeed.
More Marian Tupy here.
