ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an analytical overview of the origins, development and comparative success of the Czech centre-right since 1989. It argues that both the early success and subsequent decline of the Czech right are rooted in a single set of circumstances, which distinguish the Czech Republic from the other cases studied in this collection. Nevertheless, through its foundation and subsequent sponsorship of the Inter-parliamentary Club of the Democratic Right within Civic Forum, it served to define the emergent Czech 'democratic right' in terms of Western-oriented, pro-market conservatism, whose primary goal was the dismantling of communism and the enactment of social and economic transformation. However, leaving aside their well-known problems of inter-party co-operation, the 2002 election saw a sharp decline in the combined vote of centre-right parties that would have left them far short of a parliamentary majority.
