PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- The Social Democrats emerged from Czech elections with 20.5 percent of the vote Saturday, officials said, putting them in first place but with no clear mandate.
In one sign of popular discontent, the center-right Civic Democrats, who led the previous coalition government, picked up only 7.7 percent of the vote, Radio Prague reported.
ANO, a new populist party founded by millionaire Andrej Babis, was second with 18.6 percent and the Communists third with almost 15 percent. TOP 09, a conservative group, came in fourth with 12 percent.
"This election shows a spectacular rise of anti-politics and a huge amount of cynicism, with Czechs saying, 'How can things be any worse than what we have had now or in the recent past?' " Jiri Pehe, the director of New York University in Prague, told The New York Times.
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Pehe was an adviser to Vaclav Havel, the poet, playwright and political activist who served as president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic from 1989 to 2003.
The Social Democrats had hoped to win enough parliamentary seats to form a governing coalition with the Communists. But the two parties combined support fell far short of a majority, and the results show no obvious coalition, Radio Prague said.
A number of party leaders have ruled out some potential coalitions, complicating the situation even further.
President Milos Zeman has the constitutional power to select a prime minister. While presidents have generally picked the leader of the party that has won the largest share of the vote, Zeman has tended to be a maverick.
