Party_of_Civic_Rights_-_Zemanovci
Party of Civic Rights
Czech political party
The Party of Civic Rights (Czech: Strana Práv Občanů, SPO), also referred to as Zemanovci,[2] was a centre-left,[3][4][5] left-wing populist[2] social-democratic[3] political party in the Czech Republic founded in October 2009 by Miloš Zeman, the former prime minister of the Czech Republic and former leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party.[6] Zeman was elected the president of the Czech Republic in the second round of the 2013 Czech presidential election. The party advocated direct democracy[3] and the Nordic model.[7]
In 2014, Jan Veleba, elected as an independent candidate in the 2012 Czech Senate election, joined the party and became its chairman.[citation needed] In the 2014 Czech Senate election, former JZD Slusovice chairman František Čuba was elected as the party's second senator.[8] It has never won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic. In the 2016 Czech regional elections, it participated in a coalition with Okamura's Freedom and Direct Democracy party and won 16 seats.